


Dolus Amoris

by deankeptthecoat



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Compliant, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Mutual Pining, Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-27
Updated: 2019-11-21
Packaged: 2020-02-04 11:58:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 22,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18604084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deankeptthecoat/pseuds/deankeptthecoat
Summary: Dean can't focus. Sure, three kids are missing, and the whole damn town is acting more suspicious than OJ Simpson but Dean just. Can't. Focus. See, he hates everything. He keeps 'mysteriously' running out of booze, Sam keeps dragging him on dumb hunts for seemingly no reason, and to top it all off Cas keeps tagging along. Everytime Dean looks at him, something inside him feels like it's been filled with helium, and it keeps getting worse. So, natural, he's angry, and, as usual, it's his own damn fault.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hey! Back with this fic. I had to put it on pause/kinda start over because of some plot holes, but I patched them right up. Still... go easy, this is my first Destiel long fic like. Ever. And my first multichapter fic in probably over a year. Naturally, it's kinda short lol. But, I do hope you enjoy it!! :D

Dean didn’t know it was possible to hate floral wallpaper so much, yet here he was, sat on a piss-colored couch that felt like a marshmallow he could sink right through, in a living room that smelled of burnt cookies and mothballs, with pink and blue wallpaper that was peeling in the corners, and absolutely despising his life. It was as if the walls were taunting him, the flowers dancing across them in the sunlight, all the while mocking him for even being there. An entire room of daisies and petunias sneering at him and gloating from all directions, all so happy to be a factor in the hellish situation he found himself in. There was one wall that didn’t seem hellbenting on tormenting him, but only because it was covered in various crosses and pictures of Jesus, which really was not much better. Not even the snacks that the old lady had set out were edible. The cookies didn’t have enough chocolate chips and were too burnt on the edges for someone to even bite through, and the lemonade had been loaded with so much sugar that Dean could see clumps of it floating in his cup.

Basically, he would rather be doing anything else.

Maybe he should have gone upstairs with Cas to look for EMF or sulfur. No, never mind. He didn’t want to do that either.

“So, Mrs. Huber,” Sam said, after giving up on eating his cookie. “Did anything seem out of the ordinary the night your grandson disappeared?”

The woman shook her head. “Everything seemed perfectly fine that night.”

“Do you mind giving us a laydown of the nightly routine?”

  
“He eats dinner with me at 6, does his homework and is in bed by 8. It was just like any other night.” Mrs. Huber spoke painfully slow, and with her smoker voice and old southern accent, Dean felt like his ears were going to bleed.

He started bouncing his leg up and down to release some of the tension. It wasn’t really working.

“You didn’t see anything strange at all?” Sam pressed.

“Like what?” she asked.

“Oh, you know… flickering lights around the house? Strange smells? Things like that.”

  
“No, none that I can think of.” Mrs. Huber said.

“Well, have you considered that he’s a runaway? Because I, uh...” Dean said passive-aggressively. He grimaced as he looked around the room a bit more. “I wouldn’t blame h- ow!”

  
Mrs. Huber gasped in shock, as if even the idea of someone saying something like that would serve as the catalyst for every one’s eternal damnation. Been there done that, lady, move on. Dean stared daggers into Sam for stepping on his toe, but Sam kept acting like nothing had happened.

“You’ll have to excuse my partner for being so brash. He’s had a long few days.”

  
_Oh, fuck off, Samuel. You have no fucking clue._

“Hmph.”

“So, just to ask again, nothing was wrong at all in the nights leading up to Leo’s disappearance. Correct?”

Msr. Huber looked only at Sam this time, speaking to him as if Dean wasn’t even in the room. “Yes, that’s correct.”

Dean looked over at Sam with an ‘I fucking told you so’ look. Sam rolled his eyes. He didn’t want to admit that he might be wrong about this case, but then again, neither did Dean.

“How long has Leo been living with you?”

“Oh, about a half a year now,” the old woman droned. “After his parents died, rest their souls-” she paused to cross herself, “He came live with me.

Dean stopped paying attention after that but he could still hear the questioning from Sam and the droning answers from Mrs. Huber ringing in the backs of his ears. Sam was determined to find something supernatural about this, and Dean knew he would be here the rest of the goddamn day if something didn’t stop Sam’s interviewing. He didn’t see a case at all but his brother was convinced. He’d been on a roll with finding cases out of nowhere and it was starting to piss Dean off, along with everything else.

Speak of the devil.

Castiel came down the old stairs,  which were as rickety as everything else in the house, with chipping white paint on the rails; it had a different paper decorating the wall but it was just as floral and just as obnoxious. He held up the EMF reader in his hand, shaking his head. Nothing ghostly upstairs. Sam saw too, but he probably ignored the way the sunlight was hitting Cas’ face through the thin window curtains, the way his plain beige trench coat and white button up shirt contrasted against the ugly-as-all-hell wallpaper, the way his eyes and his tie matched. Sam just saw the EMF reader. Dean told himself to shut up and follow his brother’s lead.

“Alright, well, please call us if you remember anything or if any of the things we mentioned happened.” Both of the brothers pulled out their fake business cards with their fake numbers. Mrs. Huber only took Sam’s. Dean cursed her out in his mind as he shoved his back into the pocket of his coat.

Dean was already out the door before he could even hear the woman say “Thank you”.

“I never thought the thing that would drive me to complete insanity would be mothballs and floral wallpaper,” he grumbled. He squirmed a bit in his suit, still able to smell it on the fabric. “God, I feel old having just been in there. I’m gonna need a shower after this.”

“You’re just salty that I might be right.” Sam said.

“No!” Dean said. “Nope! Old woman said nothing weird happened, same as all the other families. You’re just getting cocky from going through all those other cases so quickly, that you pulled out of your ass, by the way-”

“I did not pull them out of my ass.” Sam retorted as they all climbed into the Impala.

“Dean has a point.” Cas piped in from the backseat. “There was no EMF in the house, or any of the others.”

“Three kids, one each last seen on a Sunday night for the past three weeks, all taken out of their rooms in the middle of the night. Like clockwork. No trace that they were ever even there.”

  
“Serial kidnapper.”

“No screams were ever heard.”

“Serial kidnapper with chloroform.”

  
“No residue of chloroform found in any of the crime scenes. And all of the kid’s bed sheets were done perfectly.”

“Serial kidnapper with chloroform and OCD.”

“Okay, Dean, now you’re the one pulling things out of your ass.”

“No, I just don’t think this is a case.” Dean threw his hands up. “What do any of these kids even have anything in common that some creep would take such an interest in them, other than they all live in the same shitty town off the backroads of Arkansas.”

“They all lost someone within the past year. Someone close, like a parent- were you paying any attention?”

“Who’d that Marion girl lose?”

“Her parents said she’d been upset because her boyfriend had moved away and broken up with her over it.”

“Ex-boyfriend does not count.”

“You’re just pissy that I’ve been right three cases in a row so far.”

“Am not.” he grunted, even though he totally was. “Fine, we’ll go down to the sheriff’s office and if- _if_ , they have anything that seems paranormal to report, we’ll stay. If not, I’m driving us the hell out of here.”

“Deal.”

“And we’re stopping at the tavern on the main road tonight regardless.”

“Deal.”

* * *

 

The police department was not much of an improvement, but what else was Dean expecting in a town where they still put wooden strips around their cars and called it macaroni. At least the floral wallpaper was gone and he was able to sneak a donut on his way in, marking it as his first meal all fucking day, and it was already two in the afternoon. As he, Sam, and Cas walked over to the sheriff’s office, they could all feel the burning of eyes of the other officer’s on the backs of their heads.

“Guess they aren’t fond of feds here, huh?” he muttered to Sam. It yielded no response.

“Good afternoon, fellas!” the sheriff said with clearly false chipper, reaching out to shake their hands. He was a stout and round man, a solid beer belly and circular face. He looked like the kind of officer who had never even seen a missing child’s poster, let alone ever had to deal with a case. Maybe it was a twisted sense of ownership over what Dean could only assume was this town’s first major investigation that was causing such hostility towards the fake agents, but at least the sheriff was courteous enough to put a show of being grateful to see them.

“Nice to meet you,” Sam shook the sheriff’s hand politely. “I’m Agent Way, these are my associates Agents Knight and Eilish.”

“Pleasure to meet you. Sheriff Anderson.” he smiled. “Before I show you what we have, I just have to ask, and pardon me if this is rude, but why is the Bureau sending down _three_ agents to a small town like this?”

“Yeah, we get that question a lot.” Dean rolled his eyes.

Sam cleared his throat. “Uh, what my partner means to say,” he shot a look at Dean, “is that our department’s job is to look at cases like this, just check them out, and if we think they warrant further investigation from the Bureau we stay around.”

“Hopefully that won’t be the case, of course.” Dean said smugly.

“Hopefully not.” Dean could hear the pained smile on Sam’s face. Oh, how he loved being passive aggressive.

“Doesn’t three of you seem a bit… much?” Anderson asked.

“We just go where we’re told, sir.” Cas spoke up from behind them.

“What Agent Eilish said.” Sam agreed. “Can you show us what you’ve got so far?”

“Of course, follow me.” Anderson started walking towards the back of the department.

“What’s up with you today?” Sam hissed.

“I don’t know what you mean.” Dean brushed him off.

“Jerk…” He caught his brother muttering.

“Bitch.”

At the back of the department was a corner, cleared of its desks with only two white boards and a few boxes of files in their place. For a case seemingly so big in the town, the part of the office dedicated to it was unnervingly barren. Each house they’d stopped at that day so far had had a mountain range of flowers and gifts laid out on the porches in honor of the missing children, missing posters could be seen for five towns up the freeway before this one, and not a single person in the town looked as if they weren’t missing their own children. It was like the department was completely separate from the rest of the community.

“Now, I know there isn’t much,” Anderson said. “But it is a bit hard to investigate a case when the victims have seem to have vanished from the face of the Earth. We have all the children on the boards, and the details of each of their cases in the boxes over there. Feel free to look through them.”

“Thank you,” Sam nodded. “Uh, it would be very helpful for us with this to get your opinion on all this, so, what do you think is happening, is it kidnaping? Are there any shady people in the town who you’ve looked at? Stuff like that?”

Dean started tuning out again, straying away from the corner to another side of the building. The department was small, with only four other officers and a receptionist, but it was apt as they had probably never had a need for any more people before. On one of the desks was a cup of coffee. Taking a quick look around to ensure no one was looking first, Dean stole a sip. It was beyond cold and he immediately spit it back out. It caught the attention of the receptionist who gave him an odd look.

“Decaf,” he smiled, trying to brush it off smoothly. She shook her head and went back to whatever she’d been doing before.

Looking around the room again, Dean saw Cas had also wandered off. He was speaking to a younger officer. He was short, at least compared to Cas, with blond hair that looked like he was trying a bit too hard to make look good, and was probably no older than twenty six. He also looked very passionate about what he was saying. And Castiel seemed interested. Very interested.

“What’s going on here, Agent, uh… whatever” Dean walked over.

“Eilish.” Cas finished his sentence.

“Yeah, yeah, eyelash, whatever.” Dean said. “What are you two talking about.”

“Deputy Baker was telling me his theory on the case.”

  
“Oh, please, just call me Emmet.” he said. “I feel kinda weird being called ‘deputy’ by two FBI agents.”

Dean snorted.

“Right, right.” He smiled. “So… Emmet. What’s you’re theory.”

The boy’s eyes lit up when yet another FBI agent showed interest in what he thought. He was definitely young, no man above thirty would get so excited over being listened to.

“Let me get out my file, I was just telling your partner the basics of it.” He crouched down, and rummaged through his drawers for a minute.

“Are you okay, Dean?” Castiel said. He was doing that squinty thing. The squinty thing were his eyebrows furrowed, and his head tilted delicately, and his lips tightened together, and even though he was squinting the blue of his eyes seemed more vibrant than usual, and it always made Dean’s stomach churn and his spine tingle because something about it felt so raw.

Dean tried to ignore it this time, he didn’t need that right now. Not on an nearly empty stomach.

“I’m fine. I just wanna get the hell out of here and get some drinks.

“You’ve been acting… abrasive as of late.”

“Have not.” he grumbled, even though he totally had been. “Cas, seriously, let’s just focus on debunking this whole situation and getting Sammy down from his high horse. And can people stop questioning _me_? We’re ‘agents’, we’re the ones supposed to be doing the questioning.”

“So,” Emmet popped his head back up from his desk, this time with a manila folder in his hands. It was so thin Dean almost believed there was nothing inside of it. Cas took it and started flipping through the few pages there were. “Sheriff Anderson hates this theory, but don’t let that dissuade you. He’s just really set on the idea that it’s runaways, thinks it’ll make it easier.”

“And what do you think?” Cas asked, focused on the file.

“Kidnapping, serial.” Emmet said bluntly.

“See, now we’re talking!” Dean smiled. Finally, someone who wasn’t a nutjob. “Who you think did it?”

Emmet was silent for a while before finally admitting, “I dunno.”

“There it is.” Great, now he’d be stuck there for another week and a half on Sam’s wild goose chase.

He started walking away.

“Wait,” Emmet called. “Look I know I don’t have evidence towards my point, but neither does the Sheriff for his. I can’t point at any one suspicious because I’ve known everyone in this town my whole life and no one would ever do anything like that. But at the same time, something shady is going on. I can feel it. The town just feels… wrong.”

  
“Well yeah, three kids are missing.” Dean said. “Seems like that would make people uneasy.”

“No, not uneasy.” Emmet said. He got a look on his face, searching for the words to find that described it. “We had a missing kid a few years ago, she ran away to go live with some old creep in Kentucky. This doesn’t feel like that. It feels more like…some people know and won’t say anything, out of fear.”

Dean and Cas looked at each other. Heavenseed, Arkansas had a serious case of the Ken Rex McElroy from the sound of it.

“Can we take this file with us?” Cas asked.

“Uh, sure. Let me make a copy, give me a few minutes.” Emmet took the folder and ran off to the copier.

“So, what do you think, is it worth it?” Dean asked Cas.

“I don’t know.” Cas shook his head. “Emmet certainly seems to think something’s up.”

“The town had never had three missing children at once,” Dean said. “They probably just don’t know how to deal with it and it feels weird. Small community like this people probably thought of these kids as their own.”

“He grew up here. If anyone would know when something is up, it would be him.” said Cas.

Dean didn’t say anything, just shook his head and walked over to his brother and the sheriff. Sam was listening intently as the sheriff went off about why each of the children would have runaway.

“Get anything good?” Dean asked.

Before Sam could answer Anderson spoke up, “You were talking to Emmet Truman, I see.”

“Yeah, his theories certainly were… interesting.” Dean looked over to where the young man was trying to scan the files, but the printer just wasn’t working. “He has moxie, I’ll certainly give him that.”

“I wouldn’t listen to his theories.” Anderson spat. The chipper, happy-old-man tone in his voice vanished. “Kid is fresh out of the academy and he’s a bit desperate for something exciting. I think these small town police runs are starting to bore him after he was stationed up in Little Rock for six months.”

“I think several missing children is pretty exciting,” Sam said. “In a… dark twisted way.”

“Tell that to City Boy.”

“Ah, he’s young. He’ll get over it.” Dean said.

“Well, I think we have enough information for now, we’ll get back to you on whether we’ll be staying here.” Sam smiled, shaking Anderson’s hand again.

“Uh, agents,” he said. “I know this is out of my jurisdiction, but I would appreciate it if you didn’t get involved. I think we’ll be able to handle this on our own.”

“Noted,” Sam said.

“So, what do you think?” Dean asked as they were walking out the door. He waved over to Cas, who had a manila file in his hands again, that they were leaving.

“I think we should stay.”

“Did the sheriff tell you anything worth it?”

“Well, no. But-”

“Then it isn’t a case.”

“We’ve gone on less, and you know that.” Dean rolled his eyes. “What about that Truman kid.”

“I got his file.” Cas said, holding up the paper folder. “His theory is that it’s a kidnapping and there’s a cover up. There are a few notes about possible hunches in here. I vote that we stay.”

“You’re fucking serious?” _Traitor_.

“Yes, I am serious. Why wouldn’t I be serious?”

“Nothing about this seems even _remotely_ paranormal.” Dean argued. “This isn’t our gig. Why should we stay?”  
“We can help people find their children regardless of if it’s the supernatural or not.” Cas said. “Why are you so against this? You’re usually the one who insists on saving everyone.”

Well, excuse Dean for just wanting to go the fuck home and sit in his room and brood. He had reasons to be salty, damn it.

“Democracy rules.” Sam smirked at Dean.

“We had a deal, Sam.” Dean glared. “If nothing supernatural showed up we’d bounce. We still don’t even have a solid connection between the victims.”

“They all went to the same church, it says so in the file.” Cas offered.

“So? There’s only, like, a thousand people in this town. Everyone here probably goes to the same church.”

“All but one of them are also getting their first communion this spring.” He pulled a paper out of the folder and handed it to Dean. Sure enough, on it was a list of possible leads all written in messy black pen. Most of them were scratched out with footnotes explaining why they were wrong. All except for one, which was written in bright red ink and circled twice. ‘ _The Church_ ’ read the jumpy handwriting, with _‘communion’_ written next to it. Underneath it were two small footnotes, _‘talk to Juliet?????_ ’ and a few other words that were too illegible to make out.

“Fine.” Dean rolled his eyes and started up the Impala. “We’ll go to the damn church. But you’re both paying for my beers tonight.”


	2. Chapter 2

The Saint Augustine Roman Catholic Church of Heavenseed, Arkansas (full name) was was the only thing in the entire town that stood out. In a county full of grey bungalows and old cars, white picket fences and rolling rice farms, trailer homes and couches in the yards, the last thing you would expect to see was a grand chapel. It stood on a sprawling, cleared field just off the main road. To one side was a garden surrounding the nun’s house, full of brown and dulled flowers that had died for the winter. On the other side was the town’s cemetery, filled to the brim with crooked gravestones, moss-covered statues, and mausoleums. The building was made of large stone bricks that shone red in the exhausted light from the sunset. The roof was rusted copper, two angels perched on each side, trumpets in hand, flying high and mighty. Right next to the statued roof was the tower and the steeple. It was beyond tall- tall enough they could see the cross perched on top from the driveway of the police station. It cast a long and impending shadow over the graveyard.

The inside was just as grand, maybe even more so. The ceilings that arched high above the pews looked like melting gold dripping down into glass chandeliers, stalagmites of riches providing the sanctuary a dim and ethereal illumination. On the walls were stained glass windows, each intricately depicting a different tableau of the Crucifixion. The sun shone through them and dyed the pews a kaleidoscope of colors, vivid enough to hold onto. The floors were small white and black tiles that appeared as smoke moving across the floor, intertwining with the small rainbow sunbeams being cast in from the windows.

Towards the front of the church stood the largest organ Dean had ever seen,  stood on its own platform with a grand window before it. The brass pipes, worn down and dulled from decades of use, extended to the walls around the instrument, yet they still reflected like gold. The ivory keys of the organ twinkled with the light coming through the wide window behind the instrument. It looked like ten thousand diamonds ready to be played, ready to make the most heavenly sounds a man could hear. Painting the stairs leading up to the organ was a chipping mural of the Disciples, each donning a sunny halo. Yet, they all looked somber as if they knew not even the holiest of them could compare to the grandeur that stood in front of them. They all stood in front of the marble baptistery. Maybe it was the blessings, or maybe it was just added, but the holy water smelled rosy. The smell of the rose water filled the whole room. It mixed with the candles and incense. It was sharp and undeniable, but calming. This was what Dean would have thought Heaven to smell like, if he didn’t know better. 

At the other end of the church stood the altar, and laying on it was a wine red cloth with gold embroidered linings. It was made of the same marble as the baptistery, but the lights were brighter here. It gleamed, spotlighting the white altar. Beside it the carefully carved wooden throne for the priest. He was absent but one could only imagine the way the room would look, filled with devout followers and at the front, a man, decorated in the holiest of clothes, sitting omnipotently on a cathedra carved just for him, spotlighted in his throne by the metaphorical light of heaven. It was almost spine-chilling just to imagine.

Just beyond that was a shrine. A larger-than-life statue of the Virgin Mary and her infant son stood towering above the group. At their feet was a galaxy of lit candles. There were no lights or golden candy chandeliers in this shrine, making the flickering of the candles the only source of light for Mary and Christ. The white stone statue glowed in the candle light, like real halos. The ceiling above the statue was separate and arched, decorated with detailed images of angels carrying around trumpets as they flew through clouds, dancing and praying, their long robes flowing behind them. Some had their wings spread out, others had their hands reaching down to the people praying below.

Dean had never been inside a chapel that made him feel so small.

They all stood in awe for a moment at the beauty of it all, when Cas broke the silence.

“That is not what Heaven is like at all.” he deadpanned. He was squinting at the (apparently inaccurate) depictions of his home. “And I thought the Sistine Chapel was ridiculous.”

“Not a believer?” A voice said. It echoed through the chapel and boomed, like the angels on the ceiling were repeating back. They all turned to see a middle aged man in a priest's uniform standing outside the door to the back of the church. He had a soft smile on but his eyes failed to keep up. Dean couldn’t shake the feeling the priest was reading his every thought.

“Not in this.” said Castiel, gruffly.

“Well, I hope someday you find peace.” The priest smiled too kindly for such a passive aggressive statement. “I’m Father Greg Jacoby. What can I do for you gentlemen?”

They all flashed their badges. “FBI.” said Dean. The friendly smile fell off the Father’s face for a moment. It was identical to the reaction Sheriff Anderson had.

“What can I help you with?”

“We’re investigating the missing children,” Sam said. “We found out that they all attended this church.”

“Well, small town like this you’ll find that everyone goes to the same church.” Jacoby had a distinct southern accent, just like everyone else, but it wasn’t obnoxious or in your face. It was gentlemanlike. It was also incredibly unsettling, like he was trying too hard to sound that way. Maybe Dean was just biased against the niche community of Catholic priests from the rural south and imagining the whole thing. He kept feeling like he was making things up lately, anyway.

“That’s what I told ‘im,” Dean said. “But of course, he insisted.”

“We just want to look into every possibility. Leave no stone unturned.” Sam continued. “In fact, we’re looking for someone specific, we received word they might know something and that we could find them here?”

“Oh, of course,” Jacoby smiled. “Who do you need?”

“Is there a girl named Juliet here?” Dean asked.

“Why, yes there is!” Jacoby said. He walked over to an elderly nun who had been lighting candles at the shrine. “Mother Helen, would you mind fetching Sister Juliet? These men are here about the missing children.”

He leaned in and whispered something else to her. The nun tensed up for a moment, before nodding and going out a door in the back in search of the girl. Castiel picked up the matches and resumed the Mother’s unfinished work.

“Juliet is a nun here,” Jacoby said. “I imagine she would be in her room or studying right now. Did Emmet Truman send you here?”

“Uh, yes he did.”

Jacoby laughed warmly. “Emmet is… an interesting boy. I remember he used to be so devout but once he chose to go away to college, and later become an officer… he lost some of that faith. I think he still has love for the Lord in his heart, but he’s a bit misguided. In fact he has barely spoken to his family since returning from college.”

“If you truly believe he’s still faithful,” Cas said. He didn’t look up from his candle lighting. The match was struggling to catch fire. “Then maybe you should consider that he just doesn’t feel welcome to worship here. He may feel safer practicing in the comfort of his own home, given your strong distaste towards college education.”

“I never said I was against college education.” Jacoby argued. “In fact I think there are some wonderful colleges that we often encourage our children to attend.”

“He didn’t attend one of those, though, did he?” The match still did not light.

“No. He went to-”

“Chicago university.” Castiel stated. “He studied criminal psychology. He had been interested in it from a young age.”

“I see you’ve been having conversations with him.” the priest stiffened. “If you really are investigating these disappearances, I wouldn’t put much weight on that boy’s speculations.”

“You know,” Cas held the match at eye level, only a few inches away from his face. He squinted at it intensely. With a quick shake, it was lit. “You’re not the first person to tell me that.”

Jacoby stared in awe at what Castiel had just done. He mouth hung open but no words came out. Dean stood staring at Cas as well, but not because he was utterly dumbfounded by what he had just witnessed. He had known Cas for who-knows-how-long and was well aware for how much power the angel wielded. But he rarely used his powers to their full extent. He had once told Dean he didn’t like using them- that, unless it was directly helpful, frivolous use of his grace made him feel too close to the days he blindly followed Heaven, striking down anyone he was told to. Now, he used it only for the small things. Healing, lighting matches, smiting the occasional demon. And even then, it wasn’t always his go-to. Dean had a sneaking suspicion that it was just weaker for some reason, and Cas was too embarrassed to admit it. Still, sometimes seeing Cas’s grace in action shocked Dean, as it would anyone. But it was often the tiny things that caught his attention, like lighting a match with the shake of his hand, and the humanness of using those powers as a last resort. It reminded Dean. 

It also made his lungs freeze and his heart squeeze, but he forced himself to write it off as nothing more than the result of what had obviously been an intimidation tactic. Obviously.

“Father?” The meek voice of a woman echoed through the sanctuary, snapping them all back to reality. They all turned to see a young woman in a nurse’s outfit standing in the doorway. She was short, petite frame. Light blonde hair could be seen showing from underneath her veil as she tucked it behind her ears. She looked confused. Hopefully she hadn’t seen Cas’s little stunt.

“Juliet, there you are, my dear.” The smile returned to Father Jacoby’s face. He walked over to her and put a hand on her shoulder. “Juliet, these men are from the FBI, they’re here about the children.”

“Oh of course,” She smiled and reached her hand out timidly. Maybe her hesitation was just how small she was compared to them. “Juliet Truman, pleasure to meet you.”

“Pleasure to meet you, too, Juliet,” Sam shook her hand gently; she was so tiny he could easily break it if he squeezed just a bit too hard. “Are you related to Emmet Truman?”

“He’s my brother.” she smiled painfully.

“Alright,” Sam let go of her hand. “Uh, Father, if you would mind allowing us to speak with Juliet in private, that would be great.”

“Of course.” Father Jacoby nodded awkwardly. He took the matches away from Castiel before leaving the room through the same door Juliet had entered from. Maybe Dean was just paranoid but he couldn’t shake the feeling Jacoby was still watching them somehow. God, his eyes were piercing.

“So, I’m sure you know already, but three kids have gone missing here, which is why the FBI has stepped in,” Sam explained. Juliet nodded impatiently.  _ Good job Captain Obvious. _ “And that’s why we’re here speaking to you, we want to know if you know anything.”

“Probably nothing you haven’t already been told,” she said. “Maybe less. We’re really not supposed to… gossip… in the convent, so I really wouldn’t know much. I just hope those children are found. They’re all so sweet.”

“You know them?” Dean pushed.

The nun nodded. “Yes, I teach them at Sunday school. I work more with the younger children to prepare them for communion, but I know all of our students.” Sam’s eyes lit up. He gave Dean a ‘ _ hey look, Ma, I was right! _ ’ look. Dean gave him a ‘ _ don’t get ahead of yourself, I’ll kick your ass, _ ’ look in return.

“If you could show us around the Sunday School, that would be fantastic.” Sam said. Juliet clenched her jaw, but nodded. “I actually have a few more questions for Father Jacoby, though, so uh, Agent Knight, do you mind going with her?”

_ Well, fuck you too, Sam _ . Dean shook his head in agreement. At least he wouldn’t have to sit through more of those God forsaken interviews.

“I’ll go, too.” said Cas.

_ Well, fuck you too, too, Cas. _

Dean really, really needed a beer.

“Is something wrong?” Juliet asked as she stood up.

“Everything’s fine.” Dean smiled, even though it totally wasn’t. Through gritted teeth, he added, “I’m just tired from... all this investigating.” He hoped the extra levels of passive aggression were heard by his brother.

“Alright, follow me.”

Dean and Castiel followed Juliet out through the front doors of the church, through the dead garden next to it. It felt colder on that part of the property. It was only 50 degrees outside, but in the garden it was cold enough that the remains of the flowers looked like they were covered in frost. Cas trailed his hands over the dead bushed and as he walked, the leaves he touched came back to life. Soon there was a small strip of lively green behind the angel. Dean grabbed his wrist and the contact made his fingertips feel like sparks.

“The hell are you doing?” he whispered.

“I was just touching the leaves.” Cas said.

“Yeah well, change them back.” Dean hissed. He reluctantly let go of Cas, who nodded and flicked his wrist. In an instant, the leaves shriveled back up, blending back into the rest of the dull grey plants. Cas shoved his hands in his pockets. The sparks in Dean’s fingers refused to fade, yelling at him to do it again.

“Are you alright?” Juliet called over her shoulder.

“Uh, yeah, just talking about... federal... stuff.” Dean smiled.

“Great save, Agent Knight.” Cas deadpanned. He was getting too good at sarcasm.

“Fuck off.” Dean walked faster to catch up to Juliet. “So you and Emmet are siblings huh?”

“Yes, we’re twins.”

“I get the feeling you guys don’t get along too well?” he asked.

“I’m a nun. Emmet ain’t stepped foot in a church since he was seventeen. Take a gander, don’t reckon you’d expect us to see eye-to-eye on most things.” She opened the door to the convent, leading them into a hallway lined with doors, behind each was a room with a plastic table and fold up chairs inside. The cheapness of the furniture compared to the intricacy of the wood carvings on the walls and doors and the stained glass decorations was stark to say the least. It smelled less like Heaven and more like Mrs. Huber’s living room. “Enough of that. This is where we give the children their lessons.” She pointed to the room at the very front. “This is where Leo and Connie have their first communion training, the room in the back is where Marion has hers for confirmation. I never taught her, but she was working very hard towards getting confirmed. Tragic, really, she would have made a great nun.”

“You’re speaking in past tense.”

“I may not speak to my brother often,” she looked him dead in the eye. “But I still know the odds of a missing child coming home alive.”

Juliet kept walking. At the end of the hallway was a small library. The walls were covered in shelves hosting what must have been at least six hundred books, most with the words “God”, “Jesus”, and/or “Christ” on the spines in shiny lettering. The sunlight tore through the windows and bounced off the books. It was so bright Dean had to squint to see the rest of the room. There wasn’t much else, just a few wooden tables and chairs in the middle.

“This is where the teens can go to study. It can be for school, but we prefer if it’s related to the church. This was the last place I saw Marion, she was reading a list of Saints.”

“And what about Leo? And Connie? When did you last see them?”

“They both showed up to their class after mass, and when it was over got picked up.” she said. “Leo was awfully shaken up when he came into the next class after Connie disappeared.”

“And then he went missing himself.” Juliet nodded. “Alright… I’m going to look around the library, would you mind…” He gestured to the door. Juliet left the room in a hurry.

He wondered where Cas had gone. He hadn’t followed them into the library. Whatever. Not like Dean cared or anything, Cas could do what he wanted as long as he didn’t draw too much attention to himself.

Dean pulled the EMF out of his coat pocket, walking around the library. It beeped steadily, showing no signs that there were any ghosts. After a full circle of the room, he came to a plain door hidden in the corner. It was splintered and crooked, like it could fall flat off its hinges at any second. There was absolutely nothing remarkable about it whatsoever.

Dean really wanted to see what was behind it. Like, really, really badly.

He started walking towards it without thinking. There was something behind it, something important, and he needed more than anything to see it. With each step closer, the more he could hear vague whispers in a language he couldn’t understand. Soon, their sound drowned everything else out, yet they weren’t much louder than if he was hearing a tea kettle whistling from several rooms away. Dean reached his hand towards the brass knob slowly. All he had to do was turn it and he would know what was behind the door that was so intriguing.

A hand landed on his shoulder and spun him around.

It was Cas. He looked beyond shaken. “Dean, are you okay?”

“C-Cas?” Dean said in a daze, his tunnel vision barely starting to die down. “There you are, I was wondering where you went.”

“I was checking the dormitories upstairs, if you must know. Are you sure you’re okay? I was calling your name for five minutes and you didn’t even blink.”

“You wha-” Dean checked his watch. He had been staring at the door for almost half an hour. At some point he had shut off his EMF reader, and he couldn’t remember any of it. “What the fuck…”

“Are you okay?”

“Uh…” he looked back at the door. He was just as close as before, his hand still slightly outreached to the door knob. But he felt different. He couldn’t hear anything other than his own slightly labored breaths and the creak of floor boards. He didn’t care what was behind the door anymore. “I think I need that beer now…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Go check out my [tumblr](https://deankeptthecoat.tumblr.com/)! I'm more active there and reblog a lot of other fics I like, too.
> 
> Feel free to bully me if my writing causes you pain. Anything will do. Kudos, comments, reblogs, and anonymous messages about my fics give me the validation I am starved of <33


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> shorter chapter and posted late. but hey! it's being posted at all, i call that progress. i wanna get this fic done ASAP so I can start working on my DCBB fic, but school is kicking my ass and all my free time right now is spent on 91 Whiskey.
> 
> It do be like that I guess.

“Jacoby basically told me the entire history of the town,” Sam said, exasperated as he swirled his beer around in his mug.

Dean hadn’t said much since Cas had snapped him out of his door trance, other than “Get in the car,” and “Two beers”. While Sam was yammering his damn tongue straight out of his mouth, Dean was absentmindedly staring off, letting the words go through one ear and leave through the other. The bar mysteriously empty, even for a Tuesday evening, making Sam’s voice echo and boom and the vague ringing in Dean’s ears pierce his skull even more. He had already finished his first beer in under five minutes, hoping it would bring him the rest of the way back down to Earth, but no cigar. His mind was still stuck on that fucking door and what the fuck could have possibly happened there.

“Says they were founded in 1860-something, and basically nothing has changed since. The first thing that was built was the church, and other than that it’s a pretty normal town founding story. People don’t vote often, those who do have always voted conservative. College isn’t big, in fact he says that a majority of the people here have never even left Arkansas. But everyone knows everyone on a first name basis, always willing to help a neighbor. Basically, nothing Jacoby said seemed suspicious.” Sam shrugged. Did you find anything in the convent?”

Dean could feel Cas’s eyes on him for a brief moment.

“No,” Cas said flatly. “I couldn’t find any EMF anywhere I searched in the convent, nor in the surrounding garden. There were some small readings in the graveyard, but nothing you wouldn’t find in any other cemetery. Juliet seemed tense but I don’t think that necessarily means this is our thing.”

“Huh,” Sam said. Dean still wasn’t looking but he could hear the disappointment in his brother’s voice, now faced with the possibility that his winning streak was over. “I dunno, maybe you were right, Dean. I guess there isn’t anything for us here after all. Maybe we should call in the actual feds or something.”

“No.” Dean said. His throat felt dry saying that and it pissed him off to no end to let Sam have the case but goddammit… something wasn’t right.

“Did you find something?” Sam pressed, the excitement returning to his tone.

“Yeah, Dean… did you find something?” Cas repeated. He drew his syllables, it made him sound like he was suspicious of Dean which he totally had no reason to be.

“I just have a feeling about this whole thing.” Dean took a sip from his second beer. “It’s not a good one, but it’s saying we gotta stay.”

“Okay, there’s no way you would have this change of heart out of nowhere, you have to have found something.” Sam laughed.

“Is this about that door?” Cas asked.

“What?” said Sam. “What door?

“Shut up, I’ll tell you later.” Something had caught Dean’s eye. A flash of blond hair in the back of the bar. When he looked over to it, he saw Emmet. He was sitting nervously by himself, the only other person in the place aside from them and the bartender. He had no drinks or even food at his table, just the apparent nervous habits of staring at his feet and twiddling his thumbs. Dean rose and started walking over to him.

“Hey Emmet.” Dean slid into the booth seat across from him with as casually as an old friend. “How ya been.”

Emmet swallowed. “I’m fine.”

“Can I get you a beer?”

“Don’t drink.”

“You sure you don’t want anything? You seem nervous.”

“Yes,” he said, even though he totally wasn’t. The vigor with which he nodded only made it more obvious he was nervous. “Yes, I’m sure. Just… waiting for someone.”

Dean looked towards the door. No one was outside, and no one had been.

“Hmm. Sure she’s not blowing you off?” he joked. Emmet stayed silent. “Right… Oh, I met your sister today.”

Emmet perked up immediately. He bombarded Dean with questions “You met Juliet? Oh my gosh, how is she? Is she still at the church? Did she say anything to you?”

“Easy up there, tiger,” Dean said. “She’s fine, from what I can tell. Seemed a bit intimidated by us but fine. She just showed me around the Sunday School and convent.”

“Did she say anything about Jacoby?”

“The priest?” Emmet nodded. “Uh, no, but he seemed like a perfectly nice guy, I suppose. As nice as a slightly creepy old priest can get. Why?”

“He was a father figure to us.” he said. “Our real father died in an accident when we were little and our mother ain’t remarried, we don’t do that here. Jacoby is the entire town’s father figure, really, but he always gave our family a bit more care, for whatever reason.”

“‘We’ll give you our shirts and a back to go with it if your crops should happen to die.” Dean quoted.

“I think Juliet thought I betrayed Father Jacoby when I chose to become a cop instead of a priest like him.” Emmet continued, completely ignoring Dean. “So now she doesn’t talk to me anymore, but you probably figured that out.”

“I’ll be totally honest, Jacoby didn’t seem too fond of you when I met him, either.”

“Yeah, that’s the other thing,” Emmet went on. “Ever since I came back from college, then training, Jacoby has just… rubbed me the wrong way.”

“You sure it’s not just cause you got a college education up in Chicago?” Dean asked. “People don’t seem to like stuff like that around here.”

“Nah, it ain’t that,” Emmet said. “Everyone treats me like that, think I’m some stuck up city boy now, like I still didn’t grow up on a damn farm. Jacoby… it feels like he’s always watching me. And since the kids have started going missing, it’s only gotten worse. I dunno what it means but I haven’t even gone back to church because he scares me too much. Now I drive two hours each way to a church in the county over every Sunday instead.”

Dean knew exactly what he meant. The whole time in the convent he could feel Jacoby’s eyes burning into the back of his skull, despite the fact that they were in two different buildings. He didn’t get the opportunity to respond.

“Emmet?” They both looked over to see Sheriff Anderson standing just inside the doorway. He glared daggers at Dean.

“Crap.” Emmet hurried out of the booth, yanking his jacket on. “I gotta go. Sorry Agent.”

“Wait, Emmet, what the hell-”

He turned around hastily, and with fear in his eyes, said, “Forget everything I said. It was all stupid anyway.” And with that, he turned and bolted out the door. Anderson didn’t say a word but made sure to ocularly stab Dean a few more times before slamming the door.

“What the hell was all that?” Sam walked up to Dean.

“That’s what I meant,” Dean nodded to where he could see Emmet climbing into the back of an old police car older than he was. “You can’t tell me that wasn’t weird.”

“I mean… yeah, no shit that was a bit weird.” Sam replied.

“Exactly. We’re staying.”

“You were the one insisting we leave!”

“You just saw all that happen, Sam,” he retaliated. “And you admitted it was weird. Like I said, I have a  _ very _ bad feeling about this whole thing.”

“So did Cas and I,” Sam asserted. “You didn’t listen then.”

“Well now it’s unanimous.”

“Fine, whatever.” Sam pulled twenty bucks out of his wallet and tossed it to the counter. “Guess we’ll go find a motel then.”

“Great, let’s go.” Dean finished his remaining beer in a single gulp.

“I’ll meet you in the Impala, I’m not letting you drive tonight.” Sam held his hands out for the keys. Dean rolled his eyes but put up no fight and handed them over.

“Cas, do you know where my jacket is?” Dean asked when he was unable to find it in the seat he’d been in.

“Is this ‘bad feeling’ you have related to the library incident earlier?” Castiel asked. Was everyone ignoring him now or something?

“Maybe, maybe not. If you tell me where my jacket is I’ll tell you what happened in the library.” He checked at Emmet’s table. Nothing.

“Under the table.” Dean crouched down and sure enough found his black suede jacket crumpled up on the restaurant floor.

“Thanks.” He grabbed it. Dean stood back up, eye to eye with Cas. It was a bit too close for his taste, yet not close enough. He could see every light fleck in the angel’s eyes, blue so bright it made the sunniest of days and the most tropical of oceans storm in envy. Dean clenched his jaw and used all his strength not to look down to Cas's lips.

“Now are you going to tell me what happened in the convent library?”

“I’ll let you know when I figure it out.” Dean said.

“You didn’t totally black out, we both know that.”

“I don’t think I have to tell you anything, you did hide my jacket as blackmail.”

Cas raised his eyebrow.  _ Goddammit _ .

“Fine.” Dean relented. “I was looking around the library, checking for EMF. ‘Course I didn’t find any, ‘stead I got some rickety old door that looks older than the Queen. As soon as I looked at it, I… I dunno. I  just got the uncontrollable urge to just walk over to it, ‘nd open it. I had to know what was behind it. I didn’t even realize what I was doing until you snapped me back to reality. It only felt like two minutes at most, instead it was thirty.”

“Is that it?”

“I heard whispering in a language I didn’t recognize and my EMF reader turned off,” Dean shrugged. “That was it.”

“Okay.” Castiel said.

“Okay?” Dean repeated. “I just told you I was hypnotized by a fucking door, and all you say is ‘okay’?”

“It’s too late to go back to the church right now and investigate.”

“We’re the supposed federal government, Cas, we can do whatever the hell we want.”

“I’ll take care of it it, Dean. Don’t worry about it” Cas stated.

Dean sighed. He took a step back from Cas. “Fine, yeah that works. Whatever the hell I gotta do to you off my back about it.”

“And Dean?”

“Hmm?”

“Are you okay?”

Dean didn’t answer right away. That question was always a nuanced one for him and he never quite knew how to respond to it.

“Yeah. I’m fine, just drunk.” He leered after a moment’s reflection, choosing to settle on the snarky response. He knew Cas was going to push him further, because of course he would; he always knew when Dean was lying about something.

He was saved by the impatient honking of the Impala.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Go check out my [tumblr](deankeptthecoat.tumblr.com)! I'm more active there and reblog a lot of other fics I like, too. Anons, comments and kudos give me the validation I am starved of <3


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this has nothing to do with the chapter, fic, but i watched god's own country and it was superb. it's an indie film about gay farmers, and as a gay farmcore lover, i quite enjoyed it. added enjoyment points for titling it like a hozier song. it's on netflix! but be warned there's some sexy times and they aren't subtle about it. this fic? subtle. that movie? nah you WILL see some dicks. overall would recommend.
> 
> alright.
> 
> continue.

Cas rose early the next morning. Well, he didn’t ‘rise’ per se because one cannot ‘rise’ if they never slept in the first place, but he did leave the motel room. He had spent the night like he always did: passing the quiet hours listening to Dean’s rhythmic snores. Most nights he would pull up a chair next to Dean’s bed, of if they were on a hunt he would place his chair between the brother’s beds, and help them fall back asleep in the common event that something disturbed them. But for the past few weeks, Dean had glared at Cas anytime he tried to carry out the routine, so instead he would settle for whatever the motel room offered. The Heavenseed Motel gave Castiel a couch to lie down on, which was a large improvement over kitchen tables, but lying on his back he found his senses were limited to only sight and smell.

He could still hear the snoring and rustling, he could still smell the aftershave and overcompensation. But on the couch Castiel could not count the freckles on Dean’s face for the millionth time, even though he had them mapped out in his mind, perfectly committed to his memory years ago. Cas could not see the soft movements of Dean’s chest, the occasional shuffle of his legs, the way he let childhood habits shine by tucking one arm under his pillow to grasp his gun and the other reaching out towards Sam’s bed. Castiel could not see the way Dean’s face only seemed relaxed on the nights he wasn’t having terrors, but Cas always pulled him down from those, even if it was just to see his face soften and, for once, look truly at peace.

He didn’t let it bother him, though. It was only for a few hours every night, and he could find other ways to pass the time.

The church, and thus the convent, opened early. The doors were locked by one of the sisters at nine o clock, on the dot, every night, and didn’t open back up until 5:30. Cas waited a few more hours after that, not wanting to walk through the dark or raise suspicion. As soon as the sunlight peeked through off-white threads of the motel room curtains, Castiel shot up. He placed the note he had written out on Dean’s bedside table. 

_ Went out, call if you need me, - Cas. _

He double checked to reassure himself that Sam and Dean were still asleep. Sure enough, they had slept like babies the whole night. Cas lingered for a moment longer to look at Dean, trying to make up for the past few weeks that he had missed. He left the room before he could lose track of time, and have them catch him.

The town was hauntingly dormant. No sound could be heard, no morning birds or buses going to pick children up, no businesses getting ready to open or people rushing to get to work on time. Even with the sun slowly rising, it still seemed like dead of night and everyone still seemed asleep. It was wrong. That wasn’t how it should be.

The only part of the town that showed signs of life was, of course, the church. The sharp sunlight bounced off the copper roofs and made the stone walls glimmer. Everything else remained in the dark still. Soft glows came the windows of the abbey as all the sisters went about their day. It was 7:45, they would have already done their morning prayers and had breakfast, and would be in their cells reading- assuming the schedule Cas had memorized in the convent hallway was correct. No one should be walking around the halls.

As soon as he opened the doors, he heard hushed yelling from down the hall. The closer he got, the more distinct the voices became. He could hear two, both angry, in the middle of an intense argument. He hid behind the opened door, peaking around to see what was happening.

He had come just in time for the climax of the event. Jacoby had Emmet cornered right up against the wall, towering above him and glaring intensely. Right behind him stood Juliet, hands together and head bowed in quiet fear, and the elderly Mother Helen from whom Castiel had taken the matches the day before, her gaze directly on Jacoby. The priest said something just too quiet for Cas to hear.

“This is my town too, I need to know what the hell is happening,” Emmet said back. “I ain’t gonna let some kids go missing, and you aint’ helping your case by trying to scare me.”

“Listen to the Father, Emmet.” Juliet and Mother Helen said in unison. It sent a chill down Cas’ back.

“Juliet,  _ you _ gotta listen to  _ me _ ,” Emmet begged his sister, and seemingly ignorant of the uniformity of the two nuns. “You know something is wrong here. You know it, and I know it.”

“Listen to the Father, Emmet.” They both repeated, the same dead tone in their voice, like they were clones reading off text they had been ordered to read aloud, but couldn’t comprehend what it meant.

Emmet’s anxious gaze moved from Juliet, to Helen, to where Cas stood halfway hidden by the door. He put a finger to his mouth and hid away fully.

Silence. Jacoby whispered something, once again too quiet. And then, footsteps coming towards the door. Emmet walked out of the room and looked at Cas. The young man’s eyes were still wide with fear, and he was shaking. Cas nodded his head to tell him to get out of there before anyone saw him lingering. Emmet nodded. He shoved his hands in his coat pocket and rushed away. He was scared. Very scared.

“Mother Helen,” Jacoby said. “Get rid of her.”

The elderly woman snapped her fingers.

Right on queue, Cas felt a buzzing in his coat pocket. It was his phone, a call from Sam. He turned it off before anyone could hear, clutching it tightly to his chest and biting his lip.

“No one knows the boy was here, correct?” Jacoby said in disgust. He started towards the door. Cas shoved himself into the space between the door and the wall. The priest and the nun walked out of the room, Juliet not following behind them, past Castiel, and up the stairs. When they were safely out of sight Cas entered the library. It was totally empty. Juliet wasn’t there. The only remaining signs that anyone had been there at all was a small uprising of dust falling slowly to the ground, no bigger than what would be expected if a gust of wind came in through an opened windows.

But the windows were  closed, and Juliet wasn’t there, just a slight disturbance in the dust particles of the room.

This was not ideal.

But Cas had come here for a reason. He reasoned it off to her leaving some other way. No, not reasoned. He just really, really,  _ really _ hoped that she had left some other way.

It took longer than he would have admitted for him to find the door, it was practically hidden behind the bookshelves.

But when he did find it, nothing happened. No pulling sensation, no tunnel vision, no incoherent whispering. Just a beaten up old door that probably lead to a storage closet. It was utterly and absolutely underwhelming. A moment passed of him waiting for something to happen, anything at all, and everything remained the same.

Cas shook his head and walked over. He had barely opened it an inch when his cell phone began to ring again. Another call from Sam. This time, he answered.

* * *

Dean groaned as Sam’s alarm bared and woke him up.

“Why do you have to chose that ringer?” He whined. “And why so loud…”

“It wakes you up, that’s why.” Sam said. He was already up, grabbing clothes out of his bag and heading to the shower.

“So would the smell of bacon.”

“I’m not cooking breakfast for you,” he rolled his eyes. “Speaking of making you food, where’d Cas go?”

Dean sat up and stretched his neck to see if Cas was still on the couch where he said he would have been. It was empty. He fell back down onto his bed and pulled the covers over his head, ignoring the slight banging in his chest that always came with not knowing where Cas was.

“Who cares.” said Dean, even though he totally did. Maybe Cas had just gotten his own room, gotten sick of having to stay at kitchen tables every night. No, he would have been back by now. Maybe he ran away completely, which Dean wouldn’t have blamed him for at all. No, Cas still would have been back by now. Dean shook the thought out of his mind entirely. “He just better come back with coffee.”

The blasting of the alarm came back, right next to his ears.

“HOLY FUCKING-” Dean leapt out of bed, going right into the first karate position he could think of. Sam cackled. “Jesus, Sam. Go take your fucking shower.”

“Jerk.”

“Bitch.”

Sam shook his head and went to the bathroom. Dean grabbed the glass of whiskey he had left on his night stand. That was when he saw the small slip of paper on his nightstand. It was written in the bittersweetly familiar handwriting that was a bit too neat and robotic, so different from his and Sam’s, that he would recognize a mile away. The note was short and sweet, and incredibly vague. At least he knew Cas would be coming back.

* * *

“Oh, you’re fucking kidding me.” Dean muttered as they approached the crowd. An assembly of panicked townsfolk were held behind a crime scene by bright yellow tape, two police cars outside a home. “I just want some fucking pancakes, is that really so much to ask.”

“We’re checking it out.” Sam ordered. Dean didn’t fight. After all, he had been the one to decide that they would stick around. He was starting to regret that choice. Fuck him and his good morals.

They got out of the car and walked over to the police tape. Sheriff Anderson stood behind it, trying to tell the onlookers to go home and let the police do their job.They flashed their badges to get to the front of the crowd. As the brothers approached he seemed to die a bit on the inside.

“Agents,” he said flatly. “Where’s your partner.”

“Agent Eilish is currently attending to business elsewhere,” Dean replied in the same impatient tone he had been greeted with. “Now, if you don’t mind we would like to know what’s happening.”

Anderson rolled his eyes before complying.

“Another child has gone missing.”

“Who?” They asked in unison.

“Stacy Smith.”

“Isn’t she the younger sister of one of the other children?” Sam asked. Anderson nodded. They shared a look. “We need to check out the crime scene and talk to the family.”

“That won’t be necessary,” Anderson insisted. “We can handle it on our own.”

“I don’t think you can.” Dean glowered. “Because if you could that girl wouldn’t have gone missing, and maybe you would have found the other children by now, too. So unless you wanna be arrested for perverting a federal investigation, we wanna talk to the parents and check out the scene.”

Dean held his badge up again, practically shoving it into the sheriff’s face. Anderson said nothing. He merely moved out of the way and let them investigate the scene.

“FBI, we need the area cleared.” Sam ordered as they entered the house. The few policemen who were scattered around the house under the guise of collecting evidence came running out. He turned to Dean. “You go look for EMF in the bedrooms, I’ll look in the living room and kitchen. Then we talk to the family.”

“You know we ain’t gonna find EMF.” Dean said.

“Leave no stone unturned.” Sam quoted himself.

Dean rolled his eyes. “You’re really putting yourself into this role, huh?” he said begrudgingly as he pulled his reader out of his coat and walked down the hall.

The house was tiny, a bungalow just off the main road, with only one bathroom and two bedrooms, and halls barely big enough for Dean’s shoulders to fit through without him having to walk slightly sideways. It was in a bit of disrepair, too; the family must not have had too much money. He knew the feeling. Even if the paint was chipped and the floors creaked too loud, and the smell of fertilizer stuck to every curtain and bedsheet, at least it was a stable home for a child to stay in without having to count down the days until they left. And at least the walls were painted solid colors instead of that hideous wallpaper.

The daughters’ bedroom was first. It wasn’t spacious but it looked cozy. The walls were painted a soft purple, two quaint windows facing the backyard, and each bed had a different color theme. The far one was blue, the near one pink. The carpets were softer there than in the rest of the house, and each girl had a small desk space to study and dresser to store clothes. Toys and loose shirts lay about the floor. It looked like the room of two rambunctious, young sisters. Two sisters that had disappeared into thin air and left no trace behind other than their messes, and with that knowledge Dean couldn’t help but feel that the air was tighter in the room. It wrapped around his throat and shrank his lungs. He stayed only long enough to check for no EMF before hurrying out. Any longer and he would have suffocated and choked from the heaviness.

Right across the hallway was the master bedroom. The door was closed. From behind it came hushed sobs and choked up whispers. He knocked and a gasp came, then silence. Dean didn’t wait for another signal and entered the room.

“Hello?” He lilted as he opened the door slowly. A man and woman sat on the bed together, both with their eyes red and their cheeks shining. Dean swallowed and replaced his reader with his badge. He didn’t need to check anyway. “I’m sorry to intrude but it’s me, Agent Knight. My partner and I need to ask you a few questions.”

They nodded and wiped away their tears.

* * *

Sam closed the blinds in the kitchen for privacy. The parents sat at the dining table, Mrs. Smith had a mug of tea grasped between her hands but wasn’t drinking it. She seemed too disconnected to have even realized her husband poured it for her.

“We’ll try not to stay too long, we understand this must be very hard for you.” Sam said, trying to comfort them. “We just have a few questions.”

Mr. Smith nodded, his wife did nothing.

Sam took a deep breath and continued. “The last time you saw Stacy was last night correct?”

“Yes,” Mr. Smith said. “It was her first night back in her own room since it happened.”

“What do you mean?” he inquired.

“After Marion dis…. Stacy refused to sleep in her own room. She was having nightmares, saying some boy she had never seen before snuck into Marion’s room that night and told her to follow him, and they snuck out of the window.”

“We never heard that  _ Stacy _ saw Marion’s boyfriend,” Sam said.

Mr. Smith nodded. “Yeah. That was our fault. We thought it was another bad dream of hers. That Marion had been whining ‘bout the break up so much it got in her head.”

“But do you think that may have really happened?”

“At this point? I ain’t sure what I know is real anymore.”

“Right.” Sam moved on. “Did you two see anything weird last night? Any of the things we asked about last time we were here?”

“No, none of that.” Mr. Smith sniffed. “But um, we did hear her saying Marion’s name.”

“You said Stacy was having nightmares, can you elaborate on that?” Dean asked.

“Sure, um…” he paused to think. “She’s always had trouble sleeping and these past few weeks made it even worse, she needed all the lights on and got up every thirty minutes to make sure we were still there, if she wasn’t sleeping with us.”

“She kept goin’ off about her camp, asleep and awake.” Mrs. Smith finally spoke up. She didn’t take her eyes off her tea, which had stopped steaming and sat there, lifeless. “I figured it was nonsense, some copin’ thing she made up after Marion was taken. Then she was taken too, same as her sister, and now I can’t help thinkin’ that maybe if I just listened to her- really listened to her…”

A few more tears fell out of her eyes and dropped into her tea with a somber  _ splash _ .

“What was she saying?”

“They were teaching weird things,” she said. “‘Bad magic’, Stacy kept callin’ it. ‘Bad, bad magic’.”

“What’s the name of the camp?” Dean demanded.

“Saint Augustine Bible Camp.” Mr. Smith said. “We send Marion and Stacy there during the summers.”

Sam’s eyes went wide. He jotted the name down and thanked them.

“You have our cards,” he said. “If you remember anything else, call us.”

After that, Sam bolted out of the house and to the Impala, pushing past the remaining officers and crowd. He reached into the back seat, pulling out the case file.

“Holy shit.” he said.

“What?”

Sam pointed to the illegible margins right in between ‘ _ communion _ ’ and ‘ _ talk to Juliet???? _ ’. “Look, what’s that look like it says?”

“Sam, I can’t read Russian,” Dean said. It just looked like chicken scratch to him.

Sam rolled his eyes. “S-A-B-C. Saint...”

“...Augustine Bible Camp.” Dean finished for him. Dean looked at it again, and if he squinted slightly he could see the poorly photo scanned footnote turn from a nonsense scribble into something of meaning.

“Are you sure?” he asked, still trying to maintain his suspension of belief.

“Well it makes sense,” Sam said. “Emmet grew up here, he grew up with Jacoby and the church. If they have a camp, and if shady shit was happening there, Emmet would know.”

“Why wouldn’t he mention that?”

Sam shrugged. “We would have to ask him that.”

Dean looked around the road. Despite being told to fuck off by two federal agents, the cops had stayed outside by the road the entire time. All of them were there, hell even the secretary was there, except for…

“Speaking of which…” Dean said. “You see Emmet anywhere?”

“No, that’s weird.” Sam remarked,

“Outstanding observation. Try giving him a call.”

Sam pulled out his phone and dialed in Emmet’s number.

“We gotta check out that camp.” Dean said as they climbed into the front seat.

“No shit, Sherlock.” said Sam. “Let’s go back to the motel and I’ll do some digging. Shit, he’s not picking up.”

“That can’t be good. What about Cas? Any word from him?”

Sam shook his head. “I called him a little while ago but he didn’t answer.”

“Hmm.” Dean said like he wasn’t bothered, even though he totally was. But he had a right to be worried, both Emmet and Cas weren’t picking up their phones and Cas had said to call if they needed him.

“Here, let me call him again.” Sam offered.

“No, no it’s fine, let’s get breakfast.”

“Dean, the hell is wrong with you?” Sam laughed, scrolling for Cas’ contact. “We have a fucking lead here, a big one, our main intel guy is missing and you’re complaining about breakfast. And you don’t even care where Cas is. Last I checked, you go crazy anytime you’re not within a ten inch radius of him. Let’s just call him, maybe he knows where Emmet is.”

“I’m sure he’s totally fine.” Dean said, pretending he didn’t just hear Sam’s comment. It wasn’t his fault Cas didn’t understand personal space. “I’m sure they both are.”

“Too late, already calling.” he put the phone on speaker. It only took a few seconds for Cas to pick up.

“Hello, Sam,” Cas said. Something in his voice sounded distracted and shaken, which worried Dean. But at least he was willing to talk to them, so he probably hadn’t ditched.

“Hey, Cas,” Sam greeted. “Where are you?”

“At the church. Why?”

“What the hell is he doing at the church?” Dean hissed, hoping Cas hadn’t heard it.

“I was following up on something.” Cas replied.  _ Well, fuck _ .

“You left me a note on my nightside just to go to a church?” Cas didn’t respond, but Sam did squint. Dean glared right back.

“Alright we’re gonna come pick you up.” Sam said. “We’ll be there in twenty minutes. Recap in the car, we found something big.”

Sam hung up before he noticed Cas had started to respond.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Go check out my [tumblr](https://deankeptthecoat.tumblr.com/)! I'm more active there and reblog a lot of other fics I like, too.
> 
> Feel free to bully me if my writing causes you pain. Anything will do. Kudos, comments, reblogs, and anonymous messages about my fics give me the validation I am starved of <33


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry if the fight scene is bad I'm new to this and my main source is the highly realistic Captain America: The Winter Soldier. What can I say? I love America(s ass)

“You didn’t see Emmet outside the Smith house?” Cas repeated.

“No, did you see him anywhere?”

Cas leaned back in his seat and thought hard about seeing Emmet in the library and how terrified he was while leaving. Then he thought of Juliet. “What about his sister? Did you hear anything from her?”

Sam shook his head, “Don’t know why she would have been at a crime scene. Weren’t _you_ the one who visited the church?”

“Okay, you can talk about this inside.” Dean pulled up to the motel parking space. “I’m going to get some burgers, I don’t wanna research jack shit on an empty stomach.”

Sam got out immediately, muttering something about how he’s always the one to do hard research. Cas got out too, but only long enough to move to the front and sit right back down in the passenger’s seat.

Dean looked at him like Cas had just confessed to murdering an infant.

“You know, you have to move the car to go somewhere in it.” he said in an innocent voice.

“Who the fuck said you were coming with me?” Dean spat.

“We get lunch together all the time,” he said. “And I thought we could talk. Dean, you have hardly said a word to me in weeks. Not since-

“No.” Dean warned- “We sure as shit ain’t talkin about _that_.”

“We aren’t talking about much of anything, lately.” he turned back and looked ahead. Dean sighed loudly, and from the corner of his eyes Cas could see his knuckles turning white from gripping the steering wheel too hard.

Dean knew he was doing it too, but he didn’t stop. He just kept staring at Cas and the way he was biting the inside of his lips like he often did when he was upset. He was probably trying to look pissed off. He just looked plain hurt. And Dean didn’t like that.

But Dean Winchester was a fucking hardass, and instead of saying a simple  _ I’m sorry _ or even a  _ We’ll talk about it later _ , like he should have- like he fucking wanted to- he said, “I’ll check the sheriff's office for Emmet after I get food.” 

Cas looked back at him and squinted. For a second he looked like he was going to say something. He stayed quiet, just shaking his head. Cas left the car and walked quickly away.

The motel room door slammed sharply behind him.

Dean brushed off his wince and stared up the car. There was a Burger King just outside of town, probably fifteen, twenty minutes away. Plus the detour to the police station, it left plenty of time for Cas to learn to get the fuck off his back, and maybe for Dean to figure out how to say sorry.

Dean drove off.

Cas huffed into the motel room and slammed the door behind him, startling Sam and making him jump. It rattled the kitchen small table he had set up with all his notes and computer laid out.

“Jesus, Cas,” he said, a bit shaken. “You alright?”

“I don’t know, Sam,” he said through gritted teeth. They could hear the Impala start up before it drove away speedily. Even Dean’s driving sounded angry. “Ask your brother.”

Sam craned to look outside the window through the crack in the blinds. Nothing was there of course, except for faint skid marks Dean had left in the pavement of the driveway.

“Yeah…” Sam sighed. “Dean’s been… I don’t even know, he’s not normally so…”

“Brash.” Cas finished for him. He took a seat on Dean’s bed. “He’s upset about something.”

“I was going to say distracted, but that works too.” he agreed. “I can’t remember the last time he was like this. Usually when something is eating away at him he gets hyper-focused on hunts, it’s all he wants to do. Hell, the whole reason I’ve been taking us on all of these was  _ because _ something is wrong and thought he could use something to keep him busy. It usually works but this time…”

Sam shook his head as he trailed off.

“This time...?” Cas egged on.

“This time it just seems like whatever’s eating him away followed him here.” Sam  finished his thought. “Not gonna lie, it’s kind of annoying.”

“It’s my fault.” Cas deadpanned, staring out the window.

Sam raised an eyebrow. “What?”

Cas hesitated, trying to choose his words wisely.

_ “Something _ happened between us a few weeks ago. He hasn’t said a word about it since, only becoming more and more hostile to me, and now you too it seems. He just refused to talk about it for the first week, and now he won’t even look me in the eye.”

Sam bit his lip like he was trying to recall something that had seemed mundane at the time. “Was it during the vamp gig in Loredo?”

Cas nodded. Sam nodded. He was smart enough to put two and two together, but he didn’t voice it.

“He bottles shit up.  Shit he  _ really _ doesn’t want to talk about. That’s his… thing.” he chuckled. “I’m sorry that he’s taking it out on you. Whatever it was, I don’t think it’s really your fault. If it’s been happening for a few weeks, I doubt he’ll be able to keep it up much longer.”

“It still hurts.” Cas said.

“He’ll spill eventually. Dean isn’t as rough as he wants to think he is. Especially for you.”

He shook his head, not sure how to process Sam’s latter comment.

“It makes me feel guilty, knowing something I played a part in distracting him from even hunting.” Castiel looked back at Sam’s sympathetic gaze. Sam probably knew how it felt, at least somewhat- having someone so close to you refuse to let you help, or even worse making you feel like the cause of all of it. And Cas could tell that Sam wanted to ask what it was that happened, because maybe then he’d have a better bearing of the situation and could probably talk some sense into his brother. But Sam knew better, and he knew what topics shouldn’t be pressed more, if he didn’t know it all already. Regardless, he had given Cas the advice he had needed, and the conversation was over. Brief as it was, at least Cas had gained some insight from the one person who knew Dean better than Cas himself did.

“If you’re as crippled by guilt as you claim,” Sam offered a half hearted smile and held out the local address book, “You could redeem yourself and help me research this goddamn camp.”

* * *

Dean got back an hour later, opening the door dramatically with his leg since his arms were too full from three whole bags of fast food and two large sodas. He hands one of the bags and drinks to Sam.

“Good news, they were stock full of veggie burgers, Caesar salads, and diet Pepsi, ya fuckin’ health nut.” he said snidely, taking a seat on one of the beds and pulling out his own cheeseburger.

Sam grumbled a thank you.

“Good news?” Cas pressed. “That implies there’s bad news.”

“Uh yeah,” Dean rubbed the back of his neck. “Didn’t see Emmet at the station. He had to call in sick, got the fucking flu or some shit.”

“Did you go check on him?”

“Cas, the last time I got a flu shot was 2009. No, I didn’t go check on him!”

“Oh, so now you’re all of a sudden considered with getting the flu?”

“Ahem?” Sam cleared his throat.

“Right, sorry.” Dean readjusted himself and took a sip from his soda that he totally didn’t mix some whiskey into. He handed Cas the last Burger King bag. Cas glared at him suspiciously, but relaxed when he saw it was just french fries. French fries count as an apology. “So uh, what’s the word on the camp?”

“We found a lot, actually.” Sam said. “Just like the Smith’s said, Saint Augustine Bible Camp. It’s privately owned… uh, only a few acres, so it’s really small. The whole church takes a retreat there every Fourth Of July but other than that, it’s a bit more exclusive. As far as we could gather only about fifteen kids go there every year, based off the photos on the website.”

Sam turned his laptop to show Dean. His heart sunk at the sight of four, very very familiar faces. All gathered right around Jacoby in the center of the image were the missing children. Marion was holding her little sister, Leo and Connie were kneeling on the dirt ground. There were a few other children, all between seven and twelve, as well as a few nuns around them. Everyone was gathered in front of a ramshackle sign stating the camp name in carved, angular letters.

“Shit.” Dean muttered.

“Yeah,” Sam agreed. “None of the pictures showed anything magical, just eight year olds swimming in the lake or reading kiddie bibles.”

“We still gotta go there, this could be how we find those kids.” Dean stood up and shoved his burger back into its bag.

“That’s the catch, it’s closed in the winter. Won’t reopen again until…” Sam scrolled for a second. “April 30th. Even then it’s only for staff members until June.”

“You mean to tell me that no one maintains that place for the entire rest of the year?”

Sam shrugged.

“Well. Totally not suspicious at all.” Dean threw his leftovers in the back of the shitty motel fridge. “Alright, finish eating, we’re going, like, now.”

They got there within the hour. The camp was located a few miles outside of the town, right on the beach of a large lake. There was no one at the entrance of the camp, only two signs, one reading the name and the other stating, in bold printed letters, ‘ _ DO NOT ENTER! PRIVATE PROPERTY _ ’. As if that would stop them. Dean parked the car just up the road anyway.

It took them another fifteen minutes to find the main building.

“Thought you said they had a groundskeeper.” Dean huffed as he picked himself up off the ground. He flipped off the fallen branch he had tripped over. The camp was kept worse than any of them anticipated. There were fallen branches everywhere, and the few sheds and buildings they had passed looked a single gust of wind from collapsing entirely. There were parts of the road so covered in dirt you couldn’t even see the concrete. If it weren’t for the map on Sam’s phone, they wouldn’t be able to tell if they were even on the right road.

Sam rolled his eyes and kept walking.

“Are you okay?” Cas asked.

Dean nodded, “Yeah. Yeah I’m good.” he said. He picked up his pace and caught up to Sam. “Please tell me we’re almost there.”

“Yeah,” Sam glanced up from his phone to look at the woods in front of them. “It’s right through here, we can take a shortcut through the woods.”

Sam led them off the path and to the woods on their left. After a few minutes climbing over rocks and trees and probably getting a fuck ton of tics, they came to a clearing with seven wooden buildings all in a circle. There was another dirt road leading down to the lake. The buildings got symmetrically bigger as they went along the circle. They were sturdy and normal- like every other cabin you would find at a camp. The whole church community had probably built them together.

“Is this it?” Dean asked, underwhelmed.

“I think they have more cabins a few minutes down the road,” Sam said. “These are the main buildings. Canteen, classrooms, shit like that.”

“Alright should we split up?” Dean said. “Great, I’ll take those two.”

He started towards one of the cabins closest to the road. Sam rolled his eyes.

“Fuck democracy, right?” he muttered to himself before going into the one Dean hadn’t taken.

Cas sighed before entering a cabin.

None of them found anything in their first cabins. They were all just bedrooms, bathrooms, or classrooms. Nothing different could be said about their second. In the end only the canteen, the biggest building right in the middle, was left.

“I swear to God, if we came here for nothing…” Dean said to himself as he walked up the stairs.

“We didn’t.” Cas asserted. Dean raised an eyebrow at him.

“Something you aren’t telling us, Cas?”

He thought about how Juliet had completely vanished from the library. Cas still hadn’t told Sam nor Dean about what he saw, because he didn’t see anything at all.

“You said the Smiths mentioned black magic?” he asked Sam. He nodded. “Then call this a hunch.”

With that, he opened the canteen door. It creaked pathetically, letting in the midday sunlight. All of the windows were grimy and dirty, too coated with mud and dust, for anything to shine through. They all turned on their flashlights and split up again. Yet as they stepped around the building, something seemed off.

“Does this place seem a bit too… lived in to anyone else.” Dean asked, nodding to the one table in the middle that had its chairs circled around as if people were eating, instead of stacked on top like the others. Sam muttered an agreement. “Keep looking around, call if you see something suspicious.”

The layout of the canteen was odd, to say the least. The cafeteria was small, a dozen tables shoved a bit too closely together in an awkward order that needed a map to navigate. Shoving through the stacked chairs and splintering tables, Castiel made his way to the kitchen. It was shoved in the far left corner off the cafeteria.

The kitchen was rustic and minimalistic. It held just a stove, an old fridge, wooden cupboards with plastic countertops and a small square window above it for light. A rack hung from the ceiling holding pots and pans instead of a lighting fixture. The wooden planks of the ceiling moaned, strained from the weight of the metal instruments. Opposite to the fridge was a metal door to the freezer. Cas pried it open. No blast of cold air washed over him, and there was no food inside. The freezer was just, while sturdier than the rest of the canteen because of its metal lining, was just as abandoned as everything else.

Cas was about to give up on his hunch when he noticed a small glow coming from the cracks of the fridge. He opened it. The fridge was stacked full of food. Eggs, lots of them, butter, milk, half a gallon of apple juice. There were some cheese slices and sticks tucked in the corners. On the bottom drawers were vegetables.

Whoever was here had been eating well. And childishly.

“Sam, Dean,” he called out. “Is the electricity on in here?”

A few moments passed before the lights in the main canteen room flickered on. They were weak and beaten down, but on.

Dean came into the kitchen, his confused expression changing to tense realization when he saw Cas holding the fridge door open.

“Shit.” he said.

“There must be a generator.” Sam said as he followed.

“What’s that?” Dean pointed to the metal door behind Cas.

“Freezer. It’s empty.” he said. He closed the fridge.

Dean didn’t listen, forcing it open all while muttering about how it was ‘heavier than it fucking looked’. The only difference was the new lighting, the dim fluorescence reflected off the metal walls in a way that could probably drive someone bat shit crazy.

“This isn’t right.” he said.

“Outstanding observation, Dean.” Sam said. “Care to elaborate?”

“Shut up,” Dean retorted as he stepped out of the freezer. He looked around the kitchen, then peaked his head into the freezer, repeat, then all the way out into the canteen. “It’s too small. The freezer, it’s way too small.”

Cas and Sam looked inside. Sure enough, it was only half as wide as the kitchen.  

“Crawl space?” Sam reasoned.

“Why the fuck would anyone have a five-foot crawl space?” Dean said. Something caught his eye. “Look, look at that sheet.”

He pointed to a sheet in the far corner of the freezer. All of the metal lining the walls of the freezer were shitty, probably too thin, and definitely not up to code, but the one Dean pointed at was different. The others were floor-to-ceiling, covering half of the wall. This one only went less than halfway up the wall, covering one of the other sheets.

“Does anyone have a drill? Or something?” he asked.

It only took a few minutes for Dean to take out the screws that feebly held the sheet in place. The sheet fell down, revealing a hole in the wall. It was barely big enough for them to fit through.

“I fucking knew it.” Dean said as he crawled through. On the other side was a hidden room, the same size as the freezer. Unlike the barren freezer, the hidden room was cluttered. A shelf stood on the far wall, carrying bottles of unknown and probably disgusting ingredients. There were candles on every available surface, including the floor. In the center of the room was a small circular table with a black book on it. On the walls were pictures of the missing children. Sam and Dean started grabbing them.

“Well, this isn’t terrifying at all.” Dean muttered to himself.

Cas wandered away, getting to the table and holding up the book that had been on it. It wasn’t very thick, but very old. The leather cover and rope binding looked like it might fall apart at any moment. 

“I think it’s a spell book.” He said.

“Great,” Dean said snidely. He bent down to the bottom of the shelfs where there were two small cabinet doors and started fiddling with them. “Check to see if there’s anything in there that’s useful. Shit- Sammy can you help me here? Damn child safety locks...”

“How old are you Dean, that you need your baby brother to open a child lock.” Sam joked as he went to help Dean.

“Shut up, bitch.”

Cas flipped through to the marked page while the two brothers kept bickering and trying to open the lock.  _ Dolvs Amoris _ , it read. He grabbed one of the flashlights and squinted at the page. 

“Yahtzee, motherfucker!” Dean cheered as he and Sam ripped the plastic lock off the cabinet door.

“Dean, Sam.” Cas said.

“What?” Sam asked.

“I was right, it’s a spell book.” he explained. “There was a bookmarked spell, called Dolus Amoris.”

“Hey, Cas….” Dean said slowly. “Your spell wouldn’t call for any of these, would it?”

He held up his hands. In one was a hex bag, the other a vile full of liquid. Cas shined the flashlight onto it, and it gleamed bright red. But only for a quick second because right after they all got a good look at it, every light in the room went out. From the candles to the flashlights to the freezer lights next door- everything went pitch black.

“What the fuck?” Dean muttered. He shook and hit his flashlight a few times and it flickered back on, notably weaker than before. He shined it on Sam, “You good?”

“Yeah.” Sam said, screwing around with his own flashlight.

“Cas?” Dean turned the light to the angel, and as soon as he did he seemed to regret it. “Shit- CAS LOOK OUT-”

Before Cas could react, something grabbed the back of his coat collar, grabbing him and pulling him out of the hole and into the freezer. Whatever or whoever it was threw him against the wall- really hard. Cas did a lot more than wince as he hit it, banging the center of the back of his head so hard he could feel it leave a dent in the thin metal sheet. The spell book went flying across the room landing under one of the rows of metal storage shelves.

He groaned as he opened his eyes to see a fuzzy figure walking back towards him with their fists clenched. The closer they got, the more Cas found he could recognize.

“Emmet?” He mumbled. The figure didn’t say a word, just landing a solid punch right on his lips. And then a knee kick. And another slamming of his head against the wall.

Dean lept out and tackled Emmet, ready to start fighting back. He stopped mid-punch when he realized who he had just tackled.

“Emmet?” he said in shock. “Don’t you have the flu?”

Once again, Emmet didn’t say a word. He just scowled and punched up, knocking Dean off of him. Dean groaned as his back knocked into a shelf.

“Dean?” Sam shouted.

“Sam, get the-  _ fuck _ !” Dean said in between Emmet’s punches. He managed to block one and shove it back up. “Grab as much shit from there as you can! I can handle this!”

Sam nodded and ducked back into the hidden room.

“The hell are you doing, Emmet?” Dean asked. He shoved Emmet off and into one of the storage shelves. Dean scrambled to his feet. “Coulda sworn you were on our side.”

“Shut up.” Emmet said, no emotion in his voice or anywhere on his face, like a robot being sent orders from a command tower.

“Oh!” Dean taunted. “He speaks!”

Emmet rose.

“I said, shut up.” He landed one more punch on Dean, who fell back against a shelf again, and then... walked away. Right to Cas, who had just managed to stand up. Emmet grabbed Cas’s tie and tugged it harshly, throwing him back against the wall again. This was not a good day for Cas’s skull. “Where’s the book?”

Cas didn’t say anything, still disoriented from having his head slammed against various hard objects throughout the past five minutes. Emmet must have gotten fed up and punched Cas.

“Where’s the book?” he asked again. His voice echoed slightly, like a reverb in his vocal cords that made him sound both incredibly distant and way too close all at once. Robotic almost, or maybe like someone was speaking through him. Cas could almost hear the faint undertones of another, deeper voice behind the boy’s.

Cas looked through the shelves to where he had seen the spell book land. Dean was crouched down looking for it, but couldn’t seem to find the shelf it had fallen under.

“What?” Cas stalled. “Can’t find it yourself?”

Emmet grabbed Cas’s throat and held him against the wall. He was stronger than he looked, slowly lifting the angel up.

“Where is the book.” he repeated. There was finally some amount of reaction in his voice, and he was tired of all this bullshit.

Cas, of course, was too busy having his larynx crushed to do anything other than wheeze and try to get Emmet off of him. In all the choking and pushing, something in one of Emmet’s pockets caught Cas’s attention. He reached in and pulled out a hex bag, just like the one Dean had found in the cabinet. Emmet saw what he had just picked up and his grip loosened.

In a case of perfect timing, a loud and almost cartoon-like  _ SMACK  _ came from behind Emmet. He dropped Cas and turned around. Dean stood right behind him, fire burning in his eyes, and the leg of one of the shelves in his hand, held like a baseball bat above his shoulders.

“Leave him alone.” Dean threatened.

Emmet cocked his head and walked closer to Dean. Dean hit him again and he fell.

“Where is the book?” Emmet asked.

“Is that all you can say?” Dean countered as he kept trying to beat Emmet in with the leg. “Jesus, how is this guy not bleeding?”

“Dean!” Cas called through his split lip. Dean looked over and he held up the hex bag.

“Ah, shit.” Dean said, taking another blind bat at Emmet. This one he caught. He pulled himself up, spun Dean around and backed them up against the wall. “Ah,  _ shit _ ! SAM!”

Sam climbed out of the hidden room.

“Emmet?” he asked, just as confused as the others had been.

“The hex bag!” Dean shouted while he wrestled Emmet over the metal leg.

Cas tossed Sam the bag. Without a word, Sam took his lighter out and set the bag on fire, holding it far away as it burned.

Emmet paused in his wrestling with Dean, backing away. He held a hand up, looking at it like it had just grown a face. It hadn’t. What it did do was dissolve into dust. The decaying spread up his arm slowly.

Dean didn’t hesitate to give one final push, sending Emmet flying into the already fucked up shelves. They crashed and fell apart some more, and Emmet collapsed into a cloud of dust. The lights came back on, shining casually through what had once been Emmet Truman.

“Crap,” Cas said when he realized what exactly that looked like.

“What the fuck was that?” Sam said. He dropped the remains of the hex bag.

“Cas, you okay?” Dean tossed his makeshift weapon aside and came over to the angel, who was still hunching against the wall.

Cas gave a weak thumbs up, even though he totally wasn’t. He tried wiping away the blood from his nose, but it just kept coming. It bled all over his clothes. 

“That’s the spirit, buddy.” He helped Cas back up. “Shit he really fucked you up. Sam, grab the book, it’s in the corner.”

Dean slung a beaten-to-hell Cas over his shoulder and helped him walk feebly out of the canteen building. He was still full of adrenaline, but at least the thing that had fucked Cas up like this was dead.

The walk back to the Impala seemed shorter than the walk there. Maybe because the whole time, Dean and Cas were almost tripping over each other as they rushed back.

“Jesus, how are you still bleeding?” Dean asked as he helped Cas slump into the back of the car. Dean’s lip and cheek had clotted a long time ago, but Cas was still wiping away more and more blood with every passing moment. His hands and clothes were so covered in it that he could damn well rewrite Macbeth. “You can’t fix yourself up?”

“You try getting your head slammed against steel multiple times in a row,” Cas snorted. It backfired and he had to stop to for a moment as another wave of blood came. Dean grimaced. The low groan Cas made couldn’t have meant anything other than  _ painpainmindnumbingpain _ . “See how easy it is for you to magically heal yourself.”

Well, good to know he wasn’t hit so hard that his sass was beaten out of him.

“Do we have to get you to hospital? Do you think you have a concussion?”

Cas shook his head slightly and winced. “I’m an angel, I don’t get concussions. I’ll be able to heal myself by the time we get back to the motel.”

“Yeah, well right now you’re putting Shakespeare to shame with all that blood,” In the most nonchalant way he possibly could, Dean took his knife out of his pocket and ripped part of his shirt off. He handed the makeshift towel to Cas. “Here ya go. Until we get back.”

Cas hesitated to take it. When he did, their fingers brushed and for that brief moment, Dean’s fingers felt like he was the goddamn Lord of Sparkles again.

“Your heart's too big for your own good, Dean.” The compliment was almost lost under the groaning.

Dean frowned, because it totally wasn’t.

“No,” he grumbled. “You’re just bleeding all over my car. That’s all.”

Yeah, real smooth.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Go check out my [tumblr](https://deankeptthecoat.tumblr.com/)! I'm more active there and reblog a lot of other fics I like, too.
> 
> Feel free to bully me if my writing causes you pain. Anything will do. Kudos, comments, reblogs, and anonymous messages about my fics give me the validation I am starved of <33


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> guess who's back! back again!
> 
> i am SOOOO fucking sorry this took so long. blame it all on this chapter- it took me literal. months. to finish. there was also the medical shit that happened- i'm fine by the way dw, and in it's aftermath i gained a new hyperfixation which kept me glued to my tv for 7+ hours a day for a week straight but you've probably seen enough of that if you follow my tumblr, blah blah blah; overall absolutely no regrets (hehe.....).
> 
> but now it's done!! huzzah!! no promises for regular updates but we are very much nearing the end of this fic so it shouldn't be as long this time :)
> 
> anyway, thank you all for ur supportive comments. they really meant a lot and were part of what motivated me to finally finish this chapter. love you all! xo

Well, Castiel had been right about one thing- when he got back to the motel he was mostly fine. He was able to heal up both himself and Dean. Sam hadn’t gotten a single damn scratch on him, the lucky bastard. He was hunched over the table, taking notes on the Dolus Amoris spell like a fucking madman. Apparently, whoever had written it decided half of it had to be in Latin. Goddamn Latin, it served no purpose in the modern world other than to make Dean’s life more inconvenient.

Dean sat on his bed absentmindedly looking at the vials of blood and hex bags. His assignment was to look at the labels on the blood bottles and ingredients in the bags and label it all and blah blah blah, he was putting in the minimum amount of effort possible. He kept getting distracted by Castiel, who was standing at the bathroom sink. The door was wide open, and Dean could see it perfectly from his bed. Castiel had spent the entire time scrubbing at his bloodied clothes in a complete silence that made his side of the room hang heavier than lead.

Oh, and he wasn’t wearing a shirt. Which would be distracting to anyone, of course, with the way he tensed up when he was cleaning, and you could see all his muscles moving, and the way you could see his hyper focused expression in the mirror’s reflection that wasn’t scary nor gentle but absolutely impossible to look away from.

Anyone would be distracted.

“Damn it…” Castiel muttered. He was still only on his tie and had made no progress. His shirt and coat were still waiting for their turn.

Dean managed to tear his eyes away from Castiel’s back and jotted down one more name before going up to the sink.

“How’s that comin’ along?” he asked.

“The blood refuses to come out.” Castiel pouted.

Dean took the tie and scrub, giving it a go. Nothing happened, the deep red stains stayed on stubbornly.

“It’s been dried for too long. Same with those.” he nodded to the shirt and coat. “You’re probably gonna need some ammonia and cotton swabs to get rid of it now. I’ll grab you some later.”

Castiel nodded a dismissive ‘thank you’ and took the tie back. He started scrubbing again.

“Okay, now I get the feeling you’re scrubbing for the sake of it.” Dean leaned against the counter of the sink. “Like some angry housewife.”

“I am angry.”

“Why?”

“Because you’ve been…”

“What? A dick? Yeah, I know, now get over it.” Dean disregarded.

“That’s exactly my point.” Castiel sneered. “You’re being rude and brash, and you won’t even explain why. It’s getting frustrating, Dean.”

“Damn, Cas, tell me how you really feel.” Castiel squinted at him, not picking up on the sarcasm. 

“Can you two stop bickering like an old married couple and get in here?” Sam called. “I finished translating.”

Dean muttered to Castiel about needing to get some fucking clothes on and stormed back into the main room.

“So get this,” Sam started. “ _ Dolus Amoris _ ? It translates into-”

“Trick of Love.” Castiel finished from the other side of the room. He was rummaging through something on the other side of Dean’s bed.

“What, is it some weird ass love spell?”

“Yeah, I guess? Not really. It’s pretty simple but it’s  _ really _ powerful. Two well-placed hex bags, a few other ingredients in a mixing bowl, and an incantation and you’re good to go.”

“What’s it do?” Dean leaned over Sam’s shoulder.

“Who ever you cast it on will see an illusion of someone they love.” Sam explained. “The illusion seems as real as you and me, but it’s controlled by whoever cast the spell, usually from a distance. The illusion can only interact with whoever the spell is directed to, but that can include several people. At the end of it, the person in control banishes the illusion. They basically just… disintegrate.”

“Ah, yes, a good ol’ Snappening. Just what we needed.” Dean huffed. “So how are they doing- holy shit, Cas.”

Dean had turned around as a motion of pure drama, and instead stopped dead in tracks when Castiel slipped on one of _his_ shirts- _his_ _favorite_ goddamn AC/DC t-shirt over a pair of _his_ jeans.

“W-what the hell are you doing?” Dean raised his voice.

“Putting on clothes. Like you said.” Castiel said casually, like he’d done this a million times before. He pulled the shirt down and flattened it out. It was way too big for him, practically hanging off his shoulders, and falling down onto his hips like a fucking party dress. Shit, it looked good on him. It looked like he had just woken up, stolen Dean’s clothes and was about to make him some eggs and bacon with coffee just the way he liked it, and-

Dean bit the inside of his lip and tried to focus on the negative side of Castiel stealing his clothes.

“I didn’t say  _ my _ clothes.”

Castiel shrugged. The neck of the shirt fell down a bit, exposing his collarbone and shoulder.

“I don’t have any others of my own, and Sam’s are far too big for me.”

Dean had no response. He was too busy staring. Staring at the way the shirt tumbled down Castiel’s frame, hanging around him in all the right ways, and how exposed his neck and shoulders were. Dear lord, it would be so easy to rip the shirt right off him and just-

“Guys?” Sam said, cutting through the thick air with a very dull knife. “Can you focus on the case for  _ one friggin’ minute _ ? We might actually be close to solving this.”

“My apologies,” Castiel walked over to the kitchen table. Dean kept staring at him as he bent over to look at their notes. “You were saying?”

“Uh, right. I imagine they cast the spell in the crawl space, then kidnap the child and bring them back to the camp, or maybe somewhere on the church grounds. They already hid one spell room, they could easily find some other way to make a room big enough for kids.”

“And the whole town knows about it?”

“Or they’re just too scared to confess they know something is wrong.”

“Jesus…” Dean ran a hand over his face. Something about the camp being so hard to find, and out of the way… it didn’t seem right. Something clicked. “Cas, you went to the church this morning, right?”

“Yes… why?”

“And you saw the door in the library?”

“Yes, but nothing happened?”

“Why the hell do you guys keep talking about a fucking door?” Sam asked.

“Shut up Sam, I’m getting to that.” Dean said. “Did you get a chance to look behind it?”

Castiel shook his head. “Why?”

Dean took one huge ass bite from his burger before explaining, “The camp was what? 45 minutes, an hour away? In fuck all nowhere of fuck all nowhere?”

The others both nodded.

“Okay, well why go to an isolated camp that far away just to cast on spell if you were going to abandon it again an hour later. There was no way they would have gone through that much trouble just to get rid of a few problematic children every single week for almost a month.”

“I guess,” Sam shrugged. It wasn’t a long drive by any means- Hell, just to get to Heavenseed, they had driven almost 12 hours straight. But not long doesn’t mean convenient.

Castiel seemed to realize the same thing Dean had.

“You’re saying they moved the spell room?”

Dean nodded, “Probably right when we arrived. And the original spell room was-”

“Right behind that door.” They both finished in unison. Massive grins spread across both their faces.

“What fucking door?!” Sam shouted.

“There’s a door in the library.” said Dean.

“It hypnotized your brother.”

“No, it did not,” Dean argued, even though it totally had.

“And you didn’t think to mention this to me?” he asked.

Dean shrugged. “I told Cas.”

“No you didn’t. I found you like that.”

“Shut up.” Both their smiles had faded and they were back to glaring at each other. Dean figured it could have turned into a staring contest- not the he would have protested to that- if not once again for Sam the interrupting moose.

“Jesus Christ,” Sam muttered. “Okay, so the door. Behind it was what? The original spell room?” Dean nodded. “And they moved it when we showed up to the camp.”

“That’s probably where they’re keeping the kids, too. They already built one hidden room, don’t see why they wouldn’t have another.” Dean said, thinking of the childish food in the fridge. He could go for some Ritz right about now, but all he has is his french fries. Castiel takes some right as he does, from his plate. “What the hell man, I got you your own for a reason.”

Castiel just shrugged and took a bite on Dean’s.

Sam rolled his eyes and ignored them.  “There’s just one thing I don’t get.” he said. “Where the hell did Emmet come from? The spell says the illusion will appear right after caster… y’know, casts. There was no one there when he showed up. I guess it could be controlled from a distance but…”

“About that,” Castiel swallowed the last of his stolen fries. “I don’t think the Truman siblings are real.

“What?” Sam said.

“It’s the way Emmet died,” Castiel explained. “He turned to dust.”

“Yeah, I saw him go Spiderman, too. What does that have to do with Juliet?” Dean asked.

“I saw the same thing happen to her, too.”

“And you didn’t think to mention that?” Dean raised his voice. “Cas, that’s kind of important!”

“I’m sorry, I kept getting preoccupied by other things, like getting beaten up.” Castiel argued back. “And I didn’t…. technically see it happen. She was there one second, I looked away, and when I looked back there was a cloud of dust.”

“Jesus, Cas…” Dean groaned. “Why are you so distracted sometimes?”

Castiel’s eyes went darker, the way they did when he felt his patience getting tested. “You don’t get to accuse me of being distracted.”

And that definitely shut Dean up.

“I think they were real at some point, but not anymore.” Castiel continued. He recounted his story of his visit to the church only earlier that day. At the end of it, the brothers both groaned.

“Great,” said Dean. “Now we have not only four missing children, but Southern Jake Peralta and Sister Mary Eunice’ve gone missing too. Fantastic. Actually perfect.”

Just then, because the Universe really was out to get them, there was a knock at their motel door. They all jumped and reached for their nearest weapon- Dean the gun tucked into his belt, Cas his angel blade, and Sam… Sam just stood up. They all looked at each other, and then Dean moved towards the door slowly.

He looked through the peephole, hands ready around his gun at any second.

“Hey, Cas…” Dean said slowly. “You said you saw Juliet disappear, right?”

When they opened the door, Dean immediately pushed a terrified Juliet into a chair and glared over her.

“What do we do with her?” he asked the others.

“Dean!” scolded Sam.

“We don’t know if she’s real, Sam!” Dean said. “There’s gotta be some test we can run.”

“Emmet disappeared when you slammed him hard enough into the shelves.” Cas suggested.

They all looked over at the shaking girl. She was out of her nun’s clothing, instead now wearing a modest pink sweater with the collar of a white button up underneath and long beige skirt that went down to her knees. She looked like Krista fucking Lenz.

She was also 5’3 at most and probably as fragile as a porcelain tea kettle. Corporeal or not, not one of them could bring themselves to slam what looked like a 13 year old into a wall so hard she turns to dust.

“If you think I’m not real,” she spoke up. Juliet’s voice shook like her hands, which were clenched neatly in her lap. “I can assure you that’s not true. That’s actually what I came here to talk to you about.”

Her voice kept cracking.

“What do you mean?” said Castiel.

Before she could explain, Dean took a knife from his bag and handed it to her. “Prove it,” he said. “I mighta been punched to hell myself but I wasn’t so out of it that I didn’t notice how your ‘brother’ didn’t bleed once during our fight.”

Juliet took a deep breath. Her hands trembled more as she took the knife. Biting her lip and saying a short prayer, she made the tiniest cut known to man  right below her thumb. Dean could almost criticize her for being a wuss and not cutting it a little deeper, but it must have been enough because just as promised, a shallow display of blood appeared.

As soon as they’d gotten a good enough look at it, Juliet started sucking on it to stop the bleeding.

Dean grumbled in response. He took the knife back and shoved it into his jacket pocket.

“You said you came here to talk to us about something?” Castiel sat down on the bed across from her.

“Yes,” she nodded, and started to tell them everything.

* * *

Juliet said it all, and then some. No one could remember when or why the church started using magic, although the popular theory was to help with crop yields. After a century and a half, most of the common townspeople had forgotten it. The crops were always good, and consistency never leads to theories. Magical interference was nothing more than an urban legend at most.

But the church kept using it in secret, for various reasons. Sometimes to help the town, sometimes to punish someone they deemed sinful, and in this case, to eliminate problem children.

“They didn’t start teachin’ it at the camp until recently,” Juliet said in what was practically a whisper. “Most of the kids don’t see nothin’ wrong with it, they don’t know no better, but Leo, Connie, and the Smith sisters… they was terrified of it. Kept runnin’ their mouths. Jacoby musta gotten paranoid someone was gonna believe them.”

“Now I’m no psychology expert,” said Dean. “but kidnapping kids after they say they’re scared of you doesn’t seem like an A+ way to throw off suspicion.”

“Most people think it was probably us,” she replied. “They’re just can’t do nothing and they know that. But all of the sisters know. Most of us helped in one way or another. I couldn’t do it anymore… Those poor kids are so scared, I had to say something.”

“And the police are all on Jacoby’s side.” Castiel said. She nodded.

“Well,” Dean pulled out his phone and started scrolling through until he found the contact,  _ ACTUAL REAL FBI AGENTS WHO CAN ACTUALLY DO FEDERAL SHIT #2 _ (number one was Bobby’s old fake fed phone). He quickly scrawled the number onto a ripped off corner of a Burger King bag and handed it to Juliet. “You’re probably gonna need to call some feds down here. They’ll be able to lock up Jacoby, Anderson, anyone else involved. Tell them to get here ASAP and with no warning. Jacoby finds out, it’ll be even for everyone.”

Juliet looked at him blankly.

“I thought  _ y’all _ were the FBI.”

“Uh…” Dean turned around to see both Sam and Castiel staring at him with entirely disappointment and absolutely no surprise.

“Great going, Dean.” said Sam.

“Shut up, she was gonna find out eventually.” he reasoned. They both kept staring. “Probably.”

“So, I just told three idiots who can’t do shit about all this?” For the first time, Juliet seemed to be raising her voice, and her accent got even stronger. She crumpled up the slip of paper and started towards the door. “Oh my gosh, I- I’m sorry I have to go.”

“No- no, wait.” Dean called after her. She paused. “Look, we may not be the FB-fucking-I but we still know enough to be able to help. Hell, we might be able to help more than any feds. We do what we gotta do, then call in the real deal and bounce. Think of it like X-Files, ‘cept we’re all Mulder and no Scully.”

“...I have no idea what that means.”

He sighed. “I’m saying… we can help. We really can. We just… gotta know where those kids are, and how to destroy all the magic supplies. Then you can call the actual feds and get Jacoby locked up.”

Juliet looked away. Her eyes flickered around the room in consideration. 

“Fine.”

* * *

Juliet led them through the convent, saying there was a map of where to find the children in Jacoby’s office. The building was empty except for them, but the open windows of the convent let in the dramatic sounds of the organ and prayer songs. The haunting echoes of the late evening mass that rang through the convent made it feel even emptier.

Jacoby’s room was at the end of a winding hallway, past all of the other chambers and rooms on the top two floors. The closer they got, the more it began to look like a medieval castle. The wall just outside his room was stone bricks, and the door had those old wooden beams that formed a Z shape for support.

Juliet gave a careful peek inside. When the coast was clear, she brought them in. It was simple, bare bones, with the only sign of life being the stacked bookshelf and the display of papers left out on the desk.

“Should be ‘round here somewhere.” she whispered. She walked over to the mess of paper and began rummaging. Sam went over to help her.

Dean lingered behind, just on the border of the doorway, and let his attention glide from where Juliet and Sam were looking for the records, to the small bookshelf where Castiel had wandered. He crouched to the ground and began prodding and poking at the books. They were all so tightly packed that not a single one could move at all, almost like they had been glued together from years of tension. The look in Castiel’s eyes was almost that of curiosity. He stared at the contents with the care of a scientist studying a new species from a quiet distance. Dean was almost jealous of the way Castiel was focusing on his task. Almost. Castiel worked his way up the shelf, testing four or five books each, until he made it to the top. Then, something seemed to catch his eye. The sides of his eyes crinkled as he slid a finger across the layers of dust.

Finally, Dean set down the bag full of hunting gear and, trying his best to be nonchalant, walked over. Castiel didn’t acknowledge him, keeping his eyes locked on the covering of dirt and dust on his finger tip.

“What’s up?” Dean asked quietly. Once again, Castiel said nothing. He glanced at Dean for a second, with the same look he had had before he left the car, then turned back to the books. On the top shelf, they were looser. Dean reached up and tried pulling one out. It moved with barely any struggle. To the left side of the shelf was a small stretch where the coating of dust thinned, right where the hole in the stacking was. Dean watched as Castiel pushed the books into their rigid placing. 

“Same size as the spell book.” Dean noted. No response. “Guess this is where they kept it when they weren’t using it.”

Still no response.  Dean looked over to the others, and when he was sure they were still organizing all the papers (which looked like a kitten teaching a giraffe how to read), he grabbed the cuff of Castiel’s coat and pulled him out the door. He dragged him back through the maze of hallways until he thought they were far enough away. The echoes of the church were dulled in the secluded, barebones bedroom he pulled them into.

Dean opened his mouth to say something, and then he didn’t. As it had done before, the words refused to come out, and he was just standing there like a goddamn idiot.

What felt like forever, but which was probably no more than 45 seconds, passed, when Castiel spoke.

“Dean?” he said, tired and pissed, like he couldn’t wait to get this done and over with.

Yeah, Dean wanted it done and over with, too. He unclenched his jaw and leaned against the fragile desk behind him.

“Okay,” he finally said, “I know I’ve been a massive dickhead lately, more so than usual, but that thing in the car was… beyond rude, and you’re upset about it, which is totally fai-”

“I’m not just upset about what happened three hours ago in your car.” Castiel cut in. “I’m upset about what’s been happening these past three weeks.  _ You _ are upset about one single night, and now you do what you always do and refuse to talk about it. Not to me, certainly not to Sam, and now not even to yourself.”

Dean stayed silent. He knew what was coming.

Castiel kept talking, and took no time ripping the band-aid off. “We slept together. It happened. Now just accept it and move on.”

He was done talking. They both let it hang in the air for a minute. It must have gotten too tense for Castiel, because he turned around to the door.

“Cas, wait.” Dean stood up off the desk. Castiel looked over his shoulder. “I’m sorry. There I said it. I’m sorry about earlier today, and about that night, and everything in between.”

“Then prove it. I don’t care how you do it, just do it. Prove that you’re actually over this whole thing.”

Well what the fuck was he supposed to do with that? Stand up and turn Cas around make out with him? Cause that’s exactly what he fucking did. And when he did, everything that happened that night in Loredo, everything he convinced himself he was too drunk to remember, came right back up. He must not have had as much to drink as he thought, because those memories felt as real as Castiel did now. It was all good, no bad, and some dirty, and he knew he wouldn’t regret it. He had waited so long for it and finally… Dean panicked. He panicked and pulled away.

“Dean?” Castiel looked at Dean at first with worry, and then with confusion.

“I-I’m sorry,” Dean stuttered. Then the confusion became annoyance. “Just, uh…. Look for anything suspicious, okay? Call Sam if anything comes up.”

Then Dean left, and he didn’t look back to see if Castiel was behind him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and i oop-


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ....oops.... in my defense, that other hyperfixation i mentioned in an early chapter may be more than just a hyperfixation lol.

Dean popped off a can of beer to relax. They had found no leads in Jacoby’s office. No map, no directions, no nothing. Juliet had apologized profusely to the point where it got annoying, saying that Jacoby must have moved it or started carrying it with him, all the way from the convent to her parent’s house. She agreed to stay there until this all blew over. But they were still no closer to solving this shit.

“So,” said Sam. He had a map pulled up on his computer of the camp, grasping at straws to see if there was something that could possibly be the answer, but it was going nowhere. After an hour and a half of comparing, staring, and zooming in and out, Sam’s eyes were starting to water. He blinked and shut the computer closed. “We’re stumped.”  
  


“Seems like.” Dean agreed.

Sam sighed.

“Cas still not back?” he asked. It had been a few hours now, the sun was long set.

“He said he was going to keep looking.” Dean lied.

“He knows we didn’t find anything there.” Sam said, probably seeing right through Dean like a pane of glass.

“Well that’s what he’s doing.” he insisted. “Who knows, maybe he can do more than us. Angel and all that shit. He’ll call if anything comes up.”

“Did something happen with you two?” Sam asked. Really getting right to the heart of it, huh?

“No.” Dean lied again. He reached for another beer. The pack was empty. “Be right back.”

He saw Sam shake his head while he walked out to the Impala. There should be at least a few more sixes in the back. As long as Sam didn’t know about Loredo it was all okay. Sam didn’t know, did he?

Wait, why was Dean getting so worked up about  _Sam_ knowing anything. If anyone was going to be chill with it, it would be him. Dean could hear his response already.  _‘Cool, just get yourselves room if you do it again_.’ Sam would be fine with it. Castiel seemed fine with it, just angry at Dean. Dean was the one with a problem with it and he didn’t even know why. ‘ _...if you do it again._ ’ Would he do it again? Would Dean take the chance to hook up with Castiel a second time if he was offered it? And again after that, and after that... Hell, what about even kissing him. The kiss in the convent had been… well it had been something, and now that Dean was just slightly not-sober enough to process it, he realized just how much he liked it. So maybe he would do that again. But the opportunity probably wouldn’t arise. If Dean had learned one thing from hunting it was that, when you bounce from town to town, you don’t get long to form connections. And even if Castiel came with them most of the time, it would just get in the way. It had gotten in the way in Loredo, and it was getting in the way now, too.  _But wouldn’t it be nice-_

Dean pulled himself out of his head and realized he was just staring into the back of his car, muttering quietly to himself and making excuses. There wasn’t an extra six-pack in the back. Had he really run out that quickly?

“Shit,” he muttered.

All this thinking about him, and Castiel, and him and Castiel was making him anxious, and he wasn’t nearly drunk enough to deal with it anymore. There was a liquor store around the corner. Another ten minutes drive away was the bar. Fuck it. A few whiskies wouldn’t do him any harm at all.

From inside the motel, Sam heard his brother burn rubber and speed off to who the fuck knows where.

* * *

Dean groaned when he dropped the keys again. Somewhere along the way, those couple of whiskeys he had planned on had turned into a river that less cleared his mind enough to think about Castiel or the case, and more so flooded him so furiously that he wouldn’t be thinking about anything at all until tomorrow afternoon. That was all fun and games, until he came to the point where he needed enough brain function and motor skills to open a goddamn door. It was just past 11, which meant it fucking  _freezing_. Even his shitfaced ass could tell. Pounding on the door had done nothing, so Sam must have been fast asleep. Maybe he had the wrong room?

No, he had the correct room. Sam just overdid it on the NightQuil again.

Dean let a string of fucks, shits, and other similar words fall from his mouth as he bent down to pick up the keys. He gave the lock one more try, which his numb, shaking hands failed to let him insert the keys into.

“God, you’re fucking kidding me…” he muttered. Fine.  _Be like that, you dumbass, bitchface lock_. He could sleep in the Impala. It had a better heater than that rundown, hick motel, anyway.

He turned around and saw Castiel. He was standing stiff and firm, even for him. Maybe he felt the cold too. No, he wasn’t standing like that kind of frozen. More like a statue.

“Cas?” he asked.

“Hello, Dean.” Castiel responded. Dean realized his ears felt like they were underwater.

“Whatcha doin here?”

As if it wasn’t his motel room, too.

“We need to talk.”

Dean’s heart sank.

“Could we do it in the morning?” he requested. “I’m tired and shit faced.”

He started to walk around Castiel to the backseat door of the impala, but he stepped in front of Dean. The light from the neon motel sign finally shone on the two of them, and Dean realized, even through the alcohol, that something was definitely off about Castiel.

“No. It can’t wait.” The sound of his voice was when Dean finally realized what was wrong. It had a certain familiar reverb to it that made it sound a hundred miles away, and underneath the coarse formality that Castiel always spoke in was the painful hint of a southern accent.

Before Dean could move, Castiel pulled Dean’s foot out from under him and flipped him down onto his back. He hit his head hard, and the last thing he saw before he passed out was Castiel’s silhouette blowing away in the February wind, and Father Jacoby’s round figure stepping in to take its place.

* * *

Castiel didn't follow Dean out of the room. He didn't want to. He just let out a sigh. It was one of frustration, because Dean had done it yet again- running from his own made-up problems, but also one of sadness. Dean seemed sad. Castiel had felt it just before he had pulled away from their kiss. Right in between the initial relief, and the somber end, there had been a flash of panic. Castiel wondered what that panic had been about.

Maybe Dean hated gay people. No, that was ridiculous. If Castiel wasn’t in such a rotten mood already, he might have laughed at the idea of a homophobic Dean Winchester.

Maybe he hated Castiel. Castiel couldn’t quite wrap his head around why someone would kiss, let alone sleep with, someone they hated. It was the type of things he had seen on Netflix, or in the movies Dean had made him watch. But it didn’t seem like the type of thing real people do. Humans were confusing in their displays of emotions, but it was getting difficult to not take this on a personal level.

Maybe Dean just hated himself. Not maybe, that was the first thing Castiel learned about Dean, and it was one of the most consistent. Did he hate himself  _that_  much though? After all these years he was still in denial that he was allowed something nice like, oh perhaps, a meaningful kiss? Dare say a relationship?

Castiel knew well enough it was probably all three, in some capacity.

“Rebelling was a mistake,” Castiel muttered.

Something clicked around his right wrist, and it went limp. From behind him, Castiel heard a voice.

“Rebelling? What on earth could that mean, Agent Eilish?”

Castiel spun around. Jacoby has snuck up on him, somehow. He had a devilish smirk on his face. In one hand he held the Winchesters’ supply backpack, and in the other, the angel handcuffs that he’d half-put on Castiel.

“I, uh…” Castiel stammered. “I’m investigating. You’re going to have to let me out of these and leave, sir. Or else I’ll have to call my superiors.” Inside his pocket, he was already opening his phone, and sliding down to the contact labeled “FBI POSERZ”. Dean had put the contact in, and Castiel had never changed it. It wasn’t hard to scroll down. It was the third one.

“See, here’s the thing,” Jacoby took a step closer. “I don’t think y’all are actual agents. Call it the lack of… professionalism. ‘Sides. I don’t think many federal agents would be carrying around a Jansport backpack filled with knives and notebooks on the occult, do you?”

Castiel was cornered. Cornered and in trouble. There wasn’t much room to talk his way out of it, so he did what he did best in situations like this: fight. He stepped back and yanked the handcuffs, violently pulling Jacoby closer, and then kneeing him in the stomach. Jacoby dropped the bag as he clutched his stomach. Castiel dropped down and started rummaging through it to find the keys- they weren’t in their usual pocket, or the back up pockets, or the Dean Was Too Tired To Put Them Away Correctly, Sorry Sam pocket. He was about the open the main one and beg that they’d be buried at the bottom- his right arm and grave were near useless until he found those damn keys- when another tug came.

Jacoby had gotten his breath back shockingly quick for an old man. He stood above Castiel; his previous smirk replaced by a firm rage.

“What are you?” he asked.

Castiel didn’t have the chance to fight back when the other cuff was latched firmly around his wrist. Jacoby stood him up and started dragging him down the hallway. The sounds of the choir were hauntingly present in the building. Castiel could make out some of the words, Latin they were. Though he heard no full sentences, he did hear one word loud and clear-  _miseri_ ; poor; miserable; wretched. The echos left the old corridor feeling vacant.

Castiel wondered who was overseeing Mass, with Jacoby so clearly preoccupied. Unless it was an illusion, of course. But did it matter?

Jacoby lead him down to the door in the library. Mother Helen awaited next to it, maintaining the same silence she always kept.

“Hope you’re not asthmatic,” he said. Mother Helen opened the door. Behind was a set of wooden stairs. They looked more unstable than an old swing set made of twigs; the rot on the edges was more visible than the room they led to. What could Dean have found so interesting about this? “We haven't been able to do much cleaning since y’all came around.”

If Castiel could cough, he probably would have. At the bottom of the creaky stairs was a tight basement, the walls and floors caked in dust and dirt. The musty smell was accompanied by the vaguest hints of parchment and candle smoke. Sure enough, what looked like the remnants of an alter, like the one at the camp, was in the center.

Jacoby finally left Castiel at a pole in the corner of the basement. There, he shoved him down and tied him up. He didn’t take off the handcuffs.

“Just stay here for a bit, will ya?” Jacoby said with a smile. “I’m gonna leave real soon, got one of the sisters manning an illusion of me for the end of Mass, and I’d love to at least be there for Communion. Surely you understand, you seem like you were once man of faith yourself.

“But before I go, I need a small favor.” he stood up and pulled something from the Winchesters’ own backpack- a knife. He bent down and slid up one of Castiel's sleeves. The knife wasn’t one made to harm an angel, but with Castiel almost powerless and half paralyzed, it would work just as well. Castiel winced as Jacoby made a long, deep cut on the outside of his arm. “Usually we would use a syringe, but seeing as how y’all destroyed half our supplies-“ he dug a little deeper, “I am goin’ to have to improvise.”

He held a small vial up and let the blood trickle in. It took a minute, but finally he yanked Castiel’s sleeve down and stoop up.

“It ain’t much,” Jacoby said, holding up the vial to inspect it. It wasn’t even half full. “But it should be enough for now.

“This is quite the inconvenience for me, Agent Eilish- or, what was it your partner called you? Cas?”

“My  _partners_  are going to find me,” Castiel said, but a small part of him doubted if that was actually true. Of all the times to get kidnapped….

Jacoby stopped, halfway up the stairs, and smirked.

“Oh, I don’t doubt it. In fact….” he shook the vial. “....I’ll make sure of it.”

Castiel started struggling against his ties, but he could barely move. Jacoby kept moving up the stairs to the library, ignoring Castiel yelling at him to let him go.

**Author's Note:**

> Go check out my [tumblr](https://deankeptthecoat.tumblr.com/)! I'm more active there and reblog a lot of other fics I like, too.
> 
> Feel free to bully me if my writing causes you pain. Anything will do. Kudos, comments, reblogs, and anonymous messages about my fics give me the validation I am starved of <33


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